SURAHMIN BUSINESS

Securities Lending is the act of large financial institutions with long positions in securities ‘lending’ out those positions to prime brokers to further lend to hedge funds and investors that want to short the particular security. The process creates incremental revenues for many of these large financial institutions; most commonly mutual funds, pension funds, insurance companies and offshore investment funds that have massive amounts of capital within their portfolios.

The size of the market is estimated to be a staggering $717 billion for US equities. One of the crucial points to note is the lack of a widespread functional exchange in which to transact security lending agreements. Security lending transactions still occur almost exclusively over the phone. It is one of the few transactions in today’s market that agreements are only reached by a prime broker picking up the phone, calling an asset manager and looking to set the terms of agreement.

Equity positions are lent out to brokers, hedge funds and proprietary trading desks with 102% – 105% collateral provided to the lending firm, giving these firms even more cash to invest in other securities; most commonly short-term money market investment vehicles. However, during the brunt of the crisis news surfaced that some institutions were in fact putting the capital in much higher risk securities such as mortgage-backed investments. This remains a potential risk to investors who have bought shares of mutual funds or ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds). If the ‘lent out’ capital is reinvested in risky assets and losses on those positions occur, this loss of investment on the collateralized securities carries through to the total performance of the fund.

What determines the fees and revenue generated by the lending firm? It is a combination of factors including: length of the loan, size of the loan, availability of the security in the open market, and stock-specific measures such as dividend amount on the underlying security. Estimates on how lucrative the business is pegs lenders such as mutual funds and pension funds making anywhere from 1 to 2 percent per annum on the loaning out of positions, while prime brokers are making between 3.5% and 7.25% over the same period.

Each transaction depends on the stock but can bring as little as 0.01% per transaction or as much as 0.40%. Securities in extremely high demand can fetch all the way into the double digit percentage points, as seen by Citigroup in 2009 when hedge funds anted up to pay as much as 13% for getting a lot of the shares to sell short.

Every housewife knows that pouring grease down a drain is a sure fire way to clog the drain and earn a costly plumbing bill. The amount of grease discharged in waste water from a regular household is enormous but as yet unregulated but now some private homes are now using small grease trap interceptors. However, the grease problem is so expensive and prone to clog the main sewer systems that steps to regulate grease discharge into waste water have been taken and the first to be regulated are restaurants.

A restaurant or cafeteria is an entirely different matter and even the grease from routine cleaning and cooking, produces grease and fat which may not only clog the plumbing of the restaurant, but can cause city wide sewer issues. Grease trap interceptors were invented and engineered to avoid that and make the grease available for recycling as well. Large cities such as Seattle have found from one third to one half of their city sewer problems have come from grease discharged into the sewer system.

Not every commercial kitchen or restaurant will have the same needs and budget though even in interceptors. Therefore there are a wide range of traps and interceptors designed to fit the kitchen and operate cleanly and efficiently. Because of the severity of the problem, increasing numbers of sewer and water systems have instituted testing and fines are levied if the grease content of waste water from a facility is too high.

The different types of grease trap interceptors come with various advantages as well as limitations. Automatic grease removal units are designed to remove particulate grease from waste water flowing from a dishwasher or pot cleaning area. Dishwashers in restaurants can be responsible for a high level of grease from plates and pots and pans. This particular interceptor captures it and stores it beside the dishwasher or drain. This type of trap may well be emptied on a daily basis and is often maintained by the staff of the restaurant.

Although dishwashers certainly produce a high level of grease which can be intercepted, trapped and recycled they are not the only possible culprits. Facilities that regularly bake or roast chicken and meats can use this grease interceptor for grease recycling grease drippings. This type of grease is eminently suitable for recycling purposes as well.

When you first start networking – attending events, joining organizations, scheduling one on one coffees – you find that the more you do, the more you get. You begin to feel comfortable, you learn how to engage people better and you start getting business and referrals from your activities. So you do a little more and you get a little more.

Over time, it starts to compound and you’re eagerly looking forward to your next activity or meeting. Then you find your results leveling off. And you need to keep growing your company, or you need to rebuild after the last few years economic situation. But you’ve hit the maximum on the amount of time you can spend on networking. How are you going to increase your results? You might need less, not more networking.

Networking is a process of building long-term (preferably), mutually beneficial relationships through the exchange of ideas, information, resources and experiences. When you go to networking events you are usually working on only the going places and meeting people (or socializing) part of the process.

The true value in networking comes out in the exchange portion where you give value to other people by sharing with them information and resources. This isn’t always done at a networking event. Giving value usually happens in the follow-up after you meet someone or talk to them at an event and find out about a need they have. Unfortunately, follow-up is by far, the most neglected aspect of networking.

If all of your budgeted networking time (you do plan how much time you’re going to spend on networking, right?) is spent going to events, there is little time for follow-up. You’ll bring your notes to the office, set them aside for later in the week. But later this week, you’ve got another event. Another little pile of notes and cards are added to the stack. Three events and two weeks later, you don’t remember the good idea you had for the person on the bottom of the pile.

Pick one of your least interesting, furthest drives, least relationship-building networking events and put it aside for now. Spend that one or two hours that you’ve freed up into following up and staying in contact with the people you’ve met at the other events. Focus on going deeper with fewer people. The saying is that “the fortune is in the follow-up.” So is a stronger, more efficient networking strategy.

Greeting cards have become more popular. Why? Well, when you think of someone having a birthday, you make it a point to go the store and find that perfect card. You make it a point to find a stamp and mail that card. The greeting card industry is a 7.5 billion dollar business. It will never go away. It will just keep on growing, as long as we have birthdays to celebrate and holidays, it will never die.

Joe Girard is in the Guinness Book of World Records for selling the most cars. I bet you wonder, Wow!! What a salesman. Well, guess how he accomplished that goal? He used greeting cards to achieve his wealth and status.

He sold himself first, that he cared and was committed to helping you find what you were looking for.

Some salesman, well, let’s say, a lot, never contact you after the sale. If they do, it’s a boring letter that is duplicated. Not personal. Joe, new that to keep that customer and get referrals, he needed to stay in touch with them. Well, he realized that greeting cards were the perfect way. He would send them all year long. For Holidays, Birthday’s, Get Well, and just to say “hello”. He new that he had the means and way to let his customers know how he was doing and in return gain their trust and loyalty.

Sending a greeting card is the cheapest and most effective way of staying in touch. Whether you are a mechanic, attorney, dentist, florist, restaurant, coffee shop, or maybe you with Avon, Mary Kay, Argonne, Scents Candles, you should send greeting cards to keep your business alive.

Competency Based Interviews

The job market is difficult at present and will continue like this for some time. In some industries the job market is continuing to get worse with no sign of improvement.

If you are applying for jobs sooner or later you will come across competency based interviews.

Competency based or situational interview techniques used a structured approach that has proven to be more effective and accurate than unstructured interviews.

You will notice that you will send off a lot of job applications and receive very few job interviews. It is vital that you perform well with the few opportunities you will get.

You need to understand competency based applications and interviews as this is a method being used by all sorts of organizations big and small.

The idea is relatively straightforward, you will be asked to give examples from your career of when and how you exhibited a particular competency. The competency can be anything from communications to leadership to initiative to ethics. The competency will vary with the job and there are few clues provided by the interviewer as to what they are looking for.

You will be assessed on how relevant your example is did it demonstrate the competency adequately, is it sufficiently current and does it show a transferable skill. The interviewer will be using a pre-determined scoring system and will ask every candidate exactly the same questions. This allows a direct comparison between every candidate and introduces an impartial assessment.

So, how are you going to make use of the few interview opportunities you will have?

What you must do is research and prepare. It is highly unlikely that you will be provided with the competency based questions in advance of the interview. You need to look at the job description in detail, information about the organization you are applying to and consider the seniority of the position. From this research you should be able to determine what competencies the interviewer is likely to be seeking. Having determined that write down the examples you can provide demonstrating that you have those competencies.