Chuck Doyle, Managing Director of Business Capital, provides tips on how business owners can manage their receivables and make sure clients are paying their bills on time.

Chuck’s interview on the MSNBC TV show “Your Business” aired on Sunday, May 31 at 7:30 AM EST.

NoQuarter Radio — Listen to Chuck Doyle on ‘Sense on Cents’

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 The biggest mistakes small businesses make when it comes to debt 

By SIMONA COVEL

Around the country, small businesses are struggling to keep their head above water in a sea of debt.

A recent survey from the National Federation of Independent Business showed the worst earnings trends for small businesses in the survey’s 35-year history. With banks too jittery to lend, credit-card companies reducing limits and investors hard to find, many small businesses find themselves struggling to stay on top of their collections and pay their own bills.

The Wall Street Journal spoke with Charles Doyle, managing director at Business Capital, a San Francisco company that helps small and midsize companies restructure their debts.

We asked him about the common mistakes small businesses make with regard to debt and what they can do to avoid having to call someone like him. Mr. Doyle says business at his company is up as much as 90% in recent months.

Here are edited excerpts from that conversation:

Alternative Sources

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: What are the options today for smaller companies that need to borrow money?

MR. DOYLE: Factoring is really becoming in vogue. That’s when you sell your invoices outstanding to a third-party firm known as a factor in exchange for cash in the amount of the invoices minus the factor’s fees. Then, money that comes from your customers is paid directly to the factor. Typically, factors will charge a daily or bi-weekly interest rate, like 2% every 10 days. Some factors will charge other fees, too, so you could be paying as much as 30% yearly.

Then there are asset-based loans from lending companies that are lines of credit based on a company’s accounts receivable. For instance, if you shipped $1 million in goods this month, you might be able to get a loan for 80% of that amount, or $800,000. You pay interest on the number of days the money is lent out to you. The lender also may increase the loan amount based on how much your inventory, assets or real estate is worth.

Julian Puckett

BORROWER, BEWARE Charles Doyle of Business Capital

Some third-party financing companies will also allow you to refinance equipment or provide financing based on inventory or equipment. But you’ve got to have equipment that has a reasonable liquidation value. They will come in and repossess the equipment and auction it off if they have to. It’s going to be expensive money, but there are people out there who will lend. You can bank on paying upward of 15% interest.

WSJ: What are some tips for finding a factor or asset-based lender?

MR. DOYLE: Sometimes people start to panic, and they’ll go on the Internet and get involved with a factor they don’t know. References should be available, and check the Better Business Bureau. Some of these companies you see on the Internet have a rap sheet a mile long. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Do your homework to make sure you know what you’re going to be paying. If you’re only making a 10% margin on your products and the money is costing you 30%, every time you ship a product you’re losing. Some of our clients build that cost of financing into the cost of the product.

WSJ: When you’re tight for cash, how should you set your priorities in terms of deciding where your money goes?

MR. DOYLE: Don’t get in a situation where you’re not paying payroll taxes or sales tax. Once you start paying penalties to the IRS — that’s expensive money.

Then, if you have a situation where you do have a bank that’s lending to you at a good rate, make sure they’re getting paid at the beginning of the month. They’re looking for any reason to pull credit lines, so make sure you pay them before you pay the guy you get printing services from, for example. Then pay your critical vendors, and explain to them where you are financially.

WSJ: What mistakes do business owners often make when they face this situation?

MR. DOYLE: Collecting accounts receivable has been a big problem for a lot of clients and then they have trouble paying vendors. Partner with vendors and keep communication open. What’s tough to do is to prioritize your creditors. Many times, businesses will pay the vendor who’s the squeaky wheel — the one who’s bugging them the most — to the detriment of key vendors or suppliers whom they have a relationship with. It should be the other way around. Keeping an eye on those relationships is critical [so they'll work with you].

If it’s not too late, companies should put together an emergency plan for financing — before it’s needed. How we’re going to deal with creditors, with financing, what options do I have if my credit line gets pulled. It’s time to educate yourself on what kinds of credit are going to be available to you, so you’re not operating at a critical time with no plan in place.

Raising Money

WSJ: What does a restructuring company like Business Capital do?

MR. DOYLE: We’re hired to raise money for the company and to pay the creditors. Some companies think it’s like a debt-consolidation loan. They say, ‘So can you pay off all of my creditors and I’ll just have one loan with you?’ That’s not how it works. There are definitely very hard conversations. You’re going to have to take a pay cut, let employees go. Restructuring is not a painless process. We can get you a million-dollar credit line, but if the company has a million dollars in debt, a lender will want a plan of how all of these creditors are going to get paid.

Sometimes we find there’s no way to help a company. If they’re in a situation where they’ve waited too long — they’re not shipping product or providing services and there are no receivables to manage — you’re looking at a wind-down.

WSJ: What’s the typical scenario for a small company that decides to file for bankruptcy protection?

MR. DOYLE: Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection is very expensive. It’s tough, especially these days where there’s no bankruptcy financing available. There are lawyers and auditors and accountants, and liquidation companies and valuation companies. All of these people are getting paid in Chapter 11. That can consume all of a company’s cash. It’s still the case where the majority of Chapter 11 filers end up in Chapter 7 liquidation.

-Ms. Covel is a staff reporter of The Wall Street Journal in South Brunswick, N.J.

Business Capital Exec Appointed to Board of Turnaround Management Association

Business Wire

| 17 Feb 2009 | 06:00 AM ET

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 17, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Business Capital (www.bizcap.com) announced today that the Turnaround Management Association (TMA) has elected Chuck Doyle to the Board of the Northern California Chapter.

Mr. Doyle is the Managing Director of Business Capital, a leading commercial financial and turnaround firm, based in San Francisco and Connecticut. With over 20 years in the business and finance industry, Chuck is well equipped to join a board comprised of professionals directly and indirectly involved in turning around businesses in various stages of distress and/or underperformance.

“It is a privilege and honor to serve on the board of an organization whose membership is uniquely positioned to assist distressed companies at this unprecedented time in the world economy,” said Doyle. “We can really make a difference.” Pamela Hayley, current board president for the Northern California chapter of TMA, was instrumental in making this recommendation to the board. “I have personally worked with Chuck and his company, Business Capital, and can attest to his commitment to helping his clients and raising the bar for the turnaround industry as a whole. We look forward to the added value Chuck will bring the TMA board and anticipate further effective collaboration within our organization,” she said.

Board appointments are selective and made to ensure balance across TMA’s prospective constituents. Members are global professionals and include a combination of a lawyer, accountants, a turnaround consultant or private equity investor, an academic, a workout banker and a non-bank financier. TMA is an international organization with more than 8,300 members in 43 chapters, including 31 in North America.

Business Capital offers a vast spectrum of services, including debt restructuring, asset based lending, asset securitization, capital raising, business turnaround and liquidation. Combining a unique blend of traditional and progressive financing methods, the firm provides clients with individualized programs to deliver successful results.

SOURCE: Business Capital CONTACT: Business Capital Jen McCarthy, 415-989-0970 or 203-292-5474 jmccarthy {at} bizcap(.)com Copyright Business Wire 2009 -0- KEYWORD: United States

North America

California INDUSTRY KEYWORD: Professional Services

Finance SUBJECT CODE: Personnel

URL: http://www.cnbc.com/id/29232661/

• JANUARY 22, 2009

By SIMONA COVEL and KELLY K. SPORS
Small businesses, hit by a wave of customers postponing payments because of the recession, are struggling to find ways to come up with enough cash to stay alive.

The companies are hugely dependent on their cash flows. But if they push their slow payers too hard, they risk losing customers. Hiring collection attorneys is also expensive, and if late payers are pushed into bankruptcy, their small-business creditors may find themselves empty-handed, waiting at the end of a long queue.

“The last thing you want to do is get in an adversarial position with your great clients; they’re your lifeline,” says Charles Doyle, managing director at Business Capital, a San Francisco company that helps businesses restructure their debts.

That’s why many businesses that are owed money are relying on cooperation rather than strong-arm tactics. “If you’re going to make it through the next 18 to 24 months, you’ve got to be open for alternative ways to get paid or you’re not being a realist,” Mr. Doyle says.

Last fall, more than half of the customers of UnitedCompanies Inc., a Houston-based handler of plastic resin, were more than 30 days past due on their bills. The company’s bank had slashed its credit line 20%, to $2.4 million. UnitedCompanies was paying its own bills late, because of the cash-flow crunch.

Marc Levine, chief executive of the company, which has 350 employees and $40 million in revenue, began personally calling customers who were more than 30 days past due. He says he explained that he needed to be paid because his business was suffering, too.

“I made sure I told them how much we loved them,” he says, “but in order to do a fine job in serving them, I needed them to accelerate payment and return my cash flow to where it was in summer ‘08 and prior.”

Mr. Levine says his personal approach worked, and many of the customers paid up after his call. He adds that he also stopped shipping for some small, financially weak customers until they began paying within 30 days. And he made some cost cuts, including laying off about 50 employees.

Some companies have been forced to take drastic steps with longtime clients. Peter J. Bredlau Jr., president of heating and air-conditioning company Quality Service Associates Inc., says he started seeing more of his customers paying late over the summer, with payments stretching to 45 to 60 days from 30 to 45 days. Today, more than half of the Roselle Park, N.J., company’s clientele of office managers, building owners and general contractors are overdue on their payments.

“That extra 15 to 20 days that people are not paying has had a pretty significant impact on my ability to keep up with my vendors,” Mr. Bredlau says. “It just slows the cycle down.”

Money Headaches

• Small businesses average $1,500 in overdue payments from customers each month.
• 42% of small businesses say “getting paid quickly” is a key issue keeping them up at night.
• Nearly 40% of small-business owners have invoices that exceed 30 days.

Source: Intuit Inc.
Note: Based on a 2008 Decifer Inc. survey of 751 businesses with fewer than 10 employees.

With longtime customers, he makes a point of handling the late payments himself. “Those relationships have gone back to the ’80s with my father,” he says. “They still operate on a handshake and a promise, which is a great way to do business as long as you get paid.”

With customers who aren’t paying on time, an accounts-receivable clerk chases the money every day. Ultimately, those who don’t pay lose the ability to make emergency calls to the service department. When the customer tries to call, the call is intercepted by the accounts-receivable clerk, who tells them to have a check ready when the technician shows up.

Many small companies are trying to strike a balance between aggressively pursuing late accounts and adopting policies that help their customers get up to speed.

Vanguard Services Inc., an Indianapolis-based company that contracts out truck drivers and had about $42 million in 2008 revenue, began a more aggressive collections process when it started noticing payments slowing down last April. Instead of mailing invoices, it began emailing them so that customers would receive them sooner. The company, which rarely made collection calls before, now calls customers within a day or two of a payment being late.

It also tries to develop several personal contacts within a company. “The more points of contacts you have and the more you know these people personally, the more trust you’re going to have,” says Chief Executive Jim Malarney.

At the same time, the company began giving customers more payment options. For instance, it let customers pay using American Express in exchange for a 3.5% transaction fee, and it offered to let them pay via wire transfers — which can sometimes be more convenient for the payer, as well as speeding up payments for Vanguard.

Since it started the new collection procedures, Vanguard has reduced its past-due accounts to 7% to 8% from 25%.

The smallest companies often feel they’re especially at the mercy of bigger customers. Susana Ortiz, president and chief executive of specialty baked-goods company Caroline’s Desserts in Redmond, Wash., says she was surprised that as many larger retail customers as smaller boutique customers were paying late. About 18% of the company’s accounts are late — up from 1% or 2% a few months ago. If you’re small, she says, big companies think they can wait to pay you.

Ms. Ortiz has had to delay hiring and buying new equipment because of the lack of cash flow, and she has been forced to use personal funds to pay bills. Nonetheless, she says, she’s “working with people when they have issues,” adjusting terms.

The more pressing problems, she says, involve newer clients who don’t have a relationship with her. In a handful of cases, new clients placed three or four orders over a couple of months and never paid. Then they stopped ordering and stopped answering their phones. As many as two dozen invoices — some as large as $2,000 or $3,000 — are 90 to 120 days old and may never be collectable.

Ms. Ortiz says she is considering suing to recover the money, but she adds that she knows that the cost of the suit may well be more than she would be able to recover.

-Raymund Flandez contributed to this article.Write to Simona Covel at simona.covel {at} wsj(.)com and Kelly K. Spors at kelly.spors {at} wsj(.)com

As the economy falters, experts say small businesses must recognize runaway costs early and start making modest cuts  

Source for Article:  Business Week, October 24, 2008

By John Tozzi

Back in 2002, Scott Chatel’s business remodeling brownstones and apartments in Brooklyn and Manhattan was so good that he set a goal to increase annual sales from $2 million to $5 million by 2005. He signed a three-year lease and renovated new office space, expanded his staff, and printed four-color brochures. His firm, Chatel Contracting, was busier than ever, but the costs of expansion erased Chatel’s profits, leading him to take on debt. “It was the overhead that was doing us in. The jobs were always profitable,” Chatel says. By the end of his lease in 2005, Chatel dropped his expansion plans and went into cost-cutting mode. Many small business owners may soon find themselves in Chatel’s situation, with rising costs and stagnant sales in a sour economy. Recent surveys of economic trends by the National Federation of Independent Business found weak levels of capital spending over the past six months. And in its latest survey, conducted in September, just 21% of respondents expected to make capital purchases in the next few months. The survey also found businesses reducing inventories, with a net 12% cutting stock rather than adding. While business owners are nervous about the economy, many have refrained from more drastic cuts or layoffs, says Jennifer Rockne, director of the American Independent Business Alliance, based in Bozeman, Mont. “The local folks are typically very reluctant to lay anybody off because a lot of their employees tend to be longtime employees,” she says. Still, by recognizing the problem early and making moderate reductions, small firms can avoid more severe cuts later on, financial experts say. Companies that ignore warning signs can erode their profits with rising costs, and those that borrow to meet those costs can wind up insolvent.

Financial Ratios Give Warning

Chatel took serious steps to cut his overhead. He gave up his office space—gutting the $50,000 renovation he had done when he moved in—and moved the office back into his home. Instead of laying people off, Chatel left vacant positions unfilled until his staff shrank from 15 to five—about the number of employees he had before expanding. He went from doing 60 jobs a year to just 13, and he cherry-picked the most profitable ones that wouldn’t require subcontractors. With the help of a workout firm, Paramus (N.J.)-based Corporate Turnaround, he negotiated payment plans with his creditors. Today Chatel’s sales are down to $700,000, but the firm is far more profitable because of his cost-cutting measures. Eliminating the office saved $500,000 a year in expenses. “Sooner or later you have to know when to say enough’s enough,” he says. Chatel counts himself lucky for acting when he did, but many small business owners don’t see their financial troubles coming. “A lot of [businesses] are financially ill but don’t even know it until it’s too late,” says Sam Bornstein, a CPA and professor of accounting at Kean University in Union, N.J. Bornstein advocates using financial ratios as an “early warning system” to signal when a business should cut costs or make other adjustments. Comparing indicators like the gross profit ratio—which shows the proportion of profits to total sales—to industry averages can tell business owners whether their costs are too high or their prices are too low. Other ratios can show whether overhead costs are too high, even if individual transactions are profitable. Bornstein says having an accountant check such figures annually will show business owners signs of trouble before they take on too much debt to cover growing costs.

Taking New Measures

Robert Welton wishes he had acted to cut costs earlier. His eight-year-old company, WelTec, based in Egg Harbor Township, N.J., builds and maintains infrastructure for telecom and cable companies. His business was doing well in early 2006, with sales of $3.6 million, 90 employees, and plenty of work repairing systems in New Orleans damaged by Hurricane Katrina. But later that year, when a customer failed to pay for a job, he says he turned to factoring (BusinessWeek.com, 10/3/08) to keep his business going. “Instead of taking the hint that if I’m having to factor my receivables I really need to scale back, I just kind of went forward,” Welton says. He resisted layoffs at first because he didn’t want to put people out of work. “These people have families that depend on their job,” he says. But he has had to cut anyway, shrinking his staff to just 20 people now. He is taking other measures, too. WelTec uses GPS devices in company trucks (BusinessWeek SmallBiz, 8/22/08), and has started charging workers for any personal use of business vehicles. Welton has also pulled some trucks off the road so he does not have to insure them. He hasn’t turned on the heat yet. And he stopped taking a salary last month, even though he’s facing home foreclosure.

Avoiding the “Death Spiral”

Companies that fail to control costs often run up debts, and then servicing that debt then becomes another cost that cuts into profits further, says Chuck Doyle, managing director of Business Capital, a San Francisco turnaround firm working with WelTec. “Some of these people, they just wait too long until there’s nothing left to give,” Doyle says. “You get into a situation where you’re in a death spiral unless you do something.” Welton hopes to keep his business going and repay his creditors. Chatel, the housing contractor, says he was lucky to recognize his problem and abandon his expansion plans at the end of his three-year lease. Shrinking the company turned out to be more profitable than trying to expand it. “As soon as you eliminate all that waste, it trickles down straight to the bottom line,” he says.

The banking-industry crisis is having an immediate impact on at least one group of small and midsize businesses: those that were built to provide products and services to a booming financial sector.
The effect on these companies “has been nothing short of devastating,” says Charles Doyle, managing director at Business Capital, a San Francisco company that provides financing and restructuring services for distressed companies. “It is complete carnage.”
Many of Mr. Doyle’s clients — mostly small-business executives — have already cut staff and borrowed against their assets, he says. Some are using credit cards to survive and have stopped taking paychecks themselves. He adds that many of their accounts receivable are so far past due that they are considered uncollectible by lenders, which can limit a company’s borrowing options.
Ken Goldstein, an economist at the Conference Board, a New York think tank, estimates that each finance job probably supported two to three other jobs. The cash-rich finance industry was known for consuming more lavish services — including limousines, corporate gifts and fancy technology — than many other sectors.
Over the 25-year life of computer-supply company E-Mediaplus, more and more of the company’s business came from the finance sector each year, says President and Chief Operating Officer Jim Jarman — in part because of the company’s Hackensack, N.J., location, which is near New York. Mr. Jarman declines to name individual clients, citing nondisclosure agreements, but says the company has lost hundreds of thousands of dollars of business over the past few months as big banks and finance companies have merged or disappeared. Business has fallen off so sharply that a few months ago, sales were growing at about 20% over last year’s rate, and now Mr. Jarman expects to post a 15% decline for the year.
The company is working to build other parts of its business, including computer-tape recycling and data destruction. But when a single Wall Street bank provided $800,000 in revenue annually, “it’s going to be tough to find another account that’s going to give you a couple million [dollars] over two years,” he says. E-Media is down to 19 staff members, compared with 35 a year and a half ago.
Tim Bartek thought the banking sector would help his business, Integra Software Systems LLC in Franklin, Tenn. The company, which provides software for lending, watched a fifth of its mortgage-banking customers disappear this year and last. So the company expanded its clientele to include consumer-and commercial-lending institutions. Now, banks and credit unions that talked about expanding consumer and commercial lending “have put it on the back burner,” says Mr. Bartek, Integra’s senior vice president for sales and marketing. In some cases, the company was midway through a deal cycle when the customer returned to say, “We’re pushing it back to ‘X’ date,” Mr. Bartek says, adding, “I have no idea when ‘X’ is.”
In the meantime, Integra has cut its staff more than 20%, to 30 people, through attrition and layoffs.
The problems are growing even for companies that are more diversified. About 15% of Per Annum Inc.’s business came from big Wall Street companies, which ordered the custom-publishing concern’s calendars and city guides as corporate gifts.
Over the past few months, Alicia Settle, Per Annum’s founder and president, has watched that business slip away. When Merrill Lynch & Co. was acquired, a $50,000 order disappeared. Bear Stearns Cos., which was also gobbled up, had been a big client, too.
Other accounts remain up in the air as Ms. Settle waits to see if the remaining big banks place their annual holiday orders.
She is not optimistic, though. “Most people right now are shying away from corporate gifts,” she says.
When business took a dive in the months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Ms. Settle says, she was able to put her own money into the New York-based company to keep it afloat.
This time, she says, her personal investment portfolio is down 25% and she is not sure she can do that again.
Instead, she is working with her vendors, which have agreed to longer payment terms and, in some cases, to send items directly to the end customer so Per Annum doesn’t have to preorder and hold lots of expensive inventory.
With a continuing stream of bad news from global markets, Ms. Settle doesn’t see corporate gift-giving picking up anytime soon. And though the company has made a concerted effort to increase its retail business in recent years — it’s about half of the total now — consumers are pulling back, too.
“Quite frankly,” Ms. Settle says, “I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

Write to Simona Covel at simona.covel {at} wsj(.)com

As Wall Street quaked Monday, small and midsize businesses prepared to feel the aftershocks in the form of tighter credit and tougher borrowing standards.
The financial crisis is the latest blow to small businesses, which have suffered through a tough year. As consumers pulled back on spending, these companies have faced more-stringent requirements from bankers, higher rates on credit cards and other loans, and the loss of funding sources from real estate, such as home-equity loans.
Now, the environment looks grimmer. Small and midsize companies are likely to see tougher requirements from their bankers in coming months.

Robert Caplin For The Wall Street Journal”If you’re seeking a new line of credit, [the effect] will be instantaneous,” says Andrew Zacharakis, professor of entrepreneurship at Babson College in Wellesley, Mass. Interest rates will move higher and the bank-loan approval process will be more rigorous, he predicts.
Some businesses with solid credit histories and long track records will probably be only slightly affected, predicts Scott Shane, an entrepreneurship professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. But many start-ups with no financial track record and those with less-than-stellar credit histories will have trouble borrowing money to run and expand their operations.
The crisis may also affect companies’ plans. Already, some small businesses are delaying big purchases and putting big projects on hold because of the uncertainty in the economy, says Raymond Keating, chief economist with the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council, a small-business association. Tom Markel, chief executive of iBank.com, an Irvine, Calif., company whose Web site helps match small businesses with lenders, is seeing the effects of the crunch firsthand. In mid-March — before the Bear Stearns Cos. collapse — potential lenders were viewing about 65% to 75% of the postings on iBank.com. That has dropped to a low of about 22%, says Mr. Markel.
He predicts that more small businesses will approach credit unions and community banks, which many borrowers may not have considered before. Already, some small businesses are turning to alternative nonbank lenders, pledging assets or accounts receivable as collateral.
In the past three to four weeks, Shelly Karras, president of Fordham Financial Services Inc., a nonbank lender in Northbrook, Ill., has fielded more calls from bankers looking to unload credits that they consider risky — primarily those that belong to debt-laden small businesses.
A year ago, Mr. Karras says, he would have considered seven to eight referrals from banks in a month’s time to be “outstanding.” In the past couple of months, bankers have passed along between 10 and 15 referrals each month — and the companies tend to be more stable businesses than in the past, such as a furniture importer that has been profitable for four straight years.
Chuck Doyle, managing director of Business Capital, which offers restructuring services and lending to small businesses, thinks many more entrepreneurs will be facing that harsh reality.
Crisis on Wall Street
AIG, Lehman Shock Hits World MarketsAIG Faces Cash Crisis as Stock Dives 61%Old-School Banks Emerge on TopComplete Coverage: Wall Street in Crisis”Lots of people believe they’re bankable. They’ve always been able to get financing,” says Mr. Doyle, who is based in San Francisco. “But when those credit lines come up for review, they’re going to find they’re not wanted and they’ve got to find another source.”
Sterling Energy Resources Inc., a small oil-and-gas producer based in Overland Park, Kan., lost about $2 million in uninsured deposits when its local bank — Columbian Bank & Trust Co. — went under in late August. Under Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. rules, the company can offset those losses against a $6 million loan that Sterling had at Columbian.
But in order to realize that offset, Sterling has to find another bank willing to take on the loan-which in this environment is very difficult. “I’m having to go out in the worst credit crisis in the world to find a bank to take that $6 million loan,” says Chief Executive Reid Scofield.
In the meantime, the company had to lay off four of its 15 employees, and is trying to manage on the $100,000 that the FDIC insured.
Write to Simona Covel at simona.covel {at} wsj(.)com, Kelly K. Spors at kelly.spors {at} wsj(.)com and Raymund Flandez at raymund.flandez {at} wsj(.)com

A California firm that provides financial assistance to companies has chosen Westport to locate its first East Coast operation.

Seeking to expand its operations to lucrative Greater New York and Fairfield County, San Francisco-based Business Capital, a provider of commercial turnaround services, has opened an office at 191 Post Road West in Westport.

The goal is to build a stronger East Coast presence, as banks tighten lending standards and firms turn to nontraditional financing, said Chuck Doyle, managing director of the firm.

“We are excited about our eastern expansion, and look forward to increasing our existing East Coast customer base as well as our partnerships with hedge funds, private equity shops and other lending affiliates,” he said. “The timing is perfect for our investment in the Eastern U.S. Demand for our services has never been greater.”

Its services include debt restructuring, asset based lending, asset securitization, capital raising and business turnaround offerings.

The fact that Fairfield County is home to such Fortune 500 companies and international banking institutions as General Electric, Xerox, UBS and the Royal Bank of Scotland, played a part in the selection of Westport, Doyle said. He said Business Capital has seen sales growth and client acquisition grow by 200 percent from last year.

“Being close to Manhattan was a consideration as well as being close to the rest of New England. I like being near the hedge funds,” Doyle said. “Hedge funds are looking to fund deals that banks tend to stay away from. We’re getting money from hedge funds.”

Business Capital, a member of the Turn Around Management Association and Association for Corporate Growth, is subleasing a 2,500-square-foot space from Connecticut Business Centers, which leases the building from owner Paragon Realty Group in Westport.

“We provide furnished and equipped office space,” said Tom Jamison, president of Connecticut Business Centers.

Doyle, who plans to have an eight- to 12-person staff in the next six to 12 months, said he expects to expand the company’s presence on the East Coast.

While the region offers opportunities for Business Capital, the company should be prepared for some stiff competition, said Lance Herman, executive director of the Westport Chamber of Commerce.

“It raises an eyebrow about what their approach is going to be to differentiate themselves,” he said, adding that the company has chosen a prime location along the busiest road in the region.

The office complex, owned by Paragon Realty Group in Westport, houses several financial services, law offices and technology businesses and is located near several other buildings with financial services businesses as tenants.

“That’s the breeding ground for financial services in our area,” Herman said.