Annual Conference 2011

This year's Annual Conference was titled 'Creating Change' and was held on Wednesday 23rd - Thursday 24th of November 2011 at the Conrad, Hilton Brussels.

The Welcome Reception, held on 23rd November at the hotel's Lobby Lounge was generously sponsored by Codix and was a great way to start the event. The morning's session of the conference was held in the Grand Ballroom and the programme once again proved to an excellent choice for the current climate with the format of afternoon 'Breakout Zones' called the Cashflow Solutions Zone and the Collaboration Zone, addressing topics such as Social Media and ABL.

The conference host Rory McGrath, who is a highly experienced presenter as well as a brilliant and versatile comedy writer and performer, hosted the conference's morning proceedings and provided some much needed light entertainment to the otherwise hard hitting programme. After Rory's introduction, the ABFA's Chairman - John Bevan, officially opened the conference with his welcome speech outlining why we have chosen title of "Creating Change". This was followed by Guest Speaker - Simon Hayes, Barclays Capital Chief Economist, who provided an update on UK Economy.

Then the programme moved onto Peter Cochrane from Cochrane Associates. Peter spoke about The Challenge Of Change and how companies and managers are experiencing more pressure to change businesses and working practices than ever before. After coffee, John Gambles from Quadrangle shared key findings - both qualitative and quantitative from his research on behalf of an ABFA member and drew some conclusions about the overall implications for ABFA Members in seeking to grow the market. This was followed by a presentation from Rob Ashley, a consultant who has been working with the ABFA for the past few months. His work has involved researching the barriers to growth for the invoice finance industry. And finally Rory McGrath led a panel discussion with John Jenkins (GE Commercial Finance), Ian Larkin (Lloyds TSB Commercial Finance), Steve Merchant (Baker Tilly) and Rob Ashley (Consultant). This session gave the audience a chance to ask questions of the panel, raised by the previous presentations as the future path of the industry was debated.

The Breakout Zones, which followed after lunch, had two presentations in each room. The Cashflow Solutions Zone covered the Government Affairs Update by Matthew Davies - ABFA, Head of Public Afffairs and very lively session by Martin Henley of Effective Marketing who began his session by putting social media into its current context; by understanding what social media is, how it has developed and outlining the business benefits social media can deliver. The Collaboration Zone offered two panel sessions. The first one had four representatives from the Private Equity and Debt Advisory world, both with and without direct experience of ABL, to provide ‘fearless feedback’ on ABL and how the product is viewed by the industry’s current and future partners. The second panel session offered delegates an understanding of the deal, and the challenges it posed and also looked at what might have been done differently.

With the close of the Breakout Zones, this concluded the Day Ticket Programme, and some relaxation time was then given to those full ticket holders who were invited to continue the programme in the evening . The content of the programme was well received, with many people commenting that it has been the best to date. It was great to see the Day Delegates in attendance again this year, which also helped to give the day a great energy.

The evening of 24th saw the Cocktail Reception, sponsored by Dancerace, and the Gala Dinner. The hotel's food was fantastic, but most delegates will have left with a great memory of being entertained by Dynamo, tipped as the most exciting British magician, whose performance certainly lifted the atmosphere of the evening.

Many thanks are due to those that made it possible and helped to make the conference such a success. Also many thanks to all the other companies who supported this year's event and continue to support us. We hope those that were able to come found it very useful and enjoyable.

We look forward to welcoming more delegates to our 6th ABFA Annual Conference in 2012. The dates and venue will be announced as soon as possible.

The photos of this event will be in our photo gallery soon.