Liverpool business law firm Glenville Walker joined leading figures from finance, investment and industry at Business Question Time to share practical insight on the challenges facing owner-managed businesses across the North West.
Held at Liverpool’s Everyman Cinema, the event brought together six senior advisors as panellists to tackle the three themes at the heart of every ambitious SME: stability, security and scale-up. Glenville Walker founder and Head of Corporate Denise Walker represented the firm alongside Mark Borzomato, CEO of River Capital; Andy McCall, Managing Partner of Langtons Chartered Accountants; Caroline Turley, Investment Manager at FW Capital; Tomas Maunier, Managing Director of Southern Wind Group; and Wesley Mort, Regional Director Northwest at HSBC.
Chaired by Frank McKenna, the discussion drew on real experience from across the funding, legal and business leadership landscape to give attendees practical, actionable guidance, with a founders perspective to add to the experiential learning.
Speaking on the most common mistakes businesses make when scaling, Denise Walker was direct: ‘If you’ve got a good business, you need to showcase it properly. Funders see a lot of opportunities. If you’re chaotic and not presenting yourself well, it doesn’t matter how strong your proposition is. You can let yourself down.’
She also highlighted the legal foundations that too many fast-growing businesses overlook: ‘People glaze over when I mention a shareholders agreement, until they end up in trouble. Get the right legal structures in place early. Don’t contract on the back of a fag packet and please look carefully at your liabilities. The businesses we’ve seen face the most difficulty are those that left it too late to take advice.’
On the subject of business security, Denise was equally clear: ‘Don’t over trade. It’s an obvious thing to say, but I’ve seen it happen spectacularly. Businesses think they’re growing, then they realise their cash isn’t keeping up. Spot the potential problems early, speak to your funders honestly and don’t bury your head. Businesses that could have been saved have been lost simply because they waited too long to ask for help.’
Andy McCall of Langtons Chartered Accountants reinforced the importance of forward planning: ‘Make sure you’re planning properly. Your cash flow forecasting should represent your best guess at where you’re going to be over the next 12, 24, 36 months. Stress-test it and think about what could realistically impact it. And speak to your funders early. Can’t say that enough. It tells them you know what you’re doing and you’re looking forward, not reacting.’
Mark Borzomato of River Capital focused on the importance of anticipating risk before it arrives: ‘Real resilience means you’ve already thought about the risks before they materialise. Understand the sensitivities in your business, avoid concentration, whether that’s with customers, suppliers or key people, and communicate early. Your options are bigger the earlier you react. The moment you leave it, they narrow. Businesses fail when they don’t see a risk coming. If they see it coming, there are normally options.’
Caroline Turley of FW Capital highlighted that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to funding: ‘There are many different types of funding available and they can all work together to help a business grow. It comes down to where the business is, what it needs, and what it’s investing in. Work with your advisors to get clear on what you’re looking to achieve, then have that conversation with funders. The information you provide and how you present it makes a real difference.’
Tomas Maunier of Southern Wind Group, the group behind the Fazenda restaurant brand, drew on direct experience of opening multiple sites to make the case for staying adaptable: ‘No matter how long you’ve been doing this, every time you scale you will find challenges you’ve never faced before. Take all the learnings you can, but go in accepting that something will happen that you didn’t expect. The leaders who succeed are the ones who can pivot quickly and get the right expertise around them when they need it.’
Wesley Mort of HSBC urged businesses to look beyond traditional lending products: ‘There’s a lot of change in the working capital space right now. Products like trade finance and invoice finance are becoming far easier and quicker to use. It’s worth exploring what’s available because the market has moved significantly. And as businesses grow, the conversation around debt versus equity becomes a real strategic decision, not just a financial one.’
The event underlined the breadth of commercial knowledge Glenville Walker brings to its work with owner-managed businesses across the region, combining legal expertise with a pragmatic understanding of what it takes to build a resilient, scalable business.
Denise added: ‘What we hear from founders, investors and funders at events like this reinforces everything we see day to day in practice. The businesses that succeed are the ones that get their governance right, spread their risk and are not afraid to take advice. That’s the foundation everything else is built on.’
