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Attached is a link to our video update on furloughing and the latest on the COVID19 Government Loan Schemes including CBILS, the big business version CLBILS operational from Monday, and the newly announced support for early stage businesses who didn’t qualify for CBILS (Head of Employment, JP van Zyl and myself in an interview with Graham Robb of Recognition PR).

Demonstrating how quickly things are on the move, an hour after filming the video, furloughing was extended until the end of June and the Governor of the Bank of England announced his adoption of the concept of 100% Government risk which we first fed into Government (indirectly to both Treasury and the Business Minister) and the IoD on 29 March following the first week of our Business Executive Fellowship Meetings, a joint initiative with Recognition PR. This then resurfaced last week to be promoted by both IoD and Ed Miliband in the Telegraph. In my view this approach is the only way that sufficient volume of CBILS will be distributed in time to ensure the survival of the ecosystems surrounding many sub £45m turnover businesses.

At the moment this is certainly not Government policy and the same rules in making an application to overstretched banking teams will probably still apply even in the event of a change of risk sharing between Government and the Banks. In view of the logjam the importance of a ‘right first time approach’ to the Bank application cannot be overemphasised. I would mention that client feedback on our COVID19 Business Response Support Group is that our free discussion/review of their CBILS/CLBILS application, which has looked at proposed applications ranging from £70k to £20m involving former senior banker, Mike Mullaney, has enabled a number of companies to progress their applications early and in several cases overcome the initial rejection from their bank. The rules for CLBILS are very similar to CBILS so we are able to carry forward our learning to support companies applying under this new scheme.

If I can be of any assistance please do not hesitate to give me a call.

Ian Gilthorpe
Senior Partner
07771 571 600