And Now for Some Good News About Fraudulent Transfers
By Joe H. Dickerson, President, Dickerson Group
When a fraudulent transfer is found, it can be good news for your judgment-enforcement case: The documentation of the debtor's transfer of assets becomes the very evidence needed to recover those assets.

Fraud Prevention: Thinking Like a Thief
By Constance L. Ochs, Director, RSM McGladrey
Sometimes a lender has little choice but to continue doing business with a borrower who has committed fraud to avoid or minimize losses.There is a fine line, however, between a lender taking sufficient action to protect its collateral and maximizing its own recovery, and overreacting to the point where the lender is held liable for damages to creditors.

Evaluating Inventory: Risks of Relying on Financial Statement Level Analysis
By Park Johnson, Sr. Appraiser, Hilco Appraisal Services & Navin Nagrani, Sr. Financial Analyst, Hilco Appraisal Services' Industrial Inventory Practice
Lenders should be careful not to rely heavily on financial statement level information to assess the health of the inventory. Requesting and analyzing category and item level inventory and sales information allows the lender to get a better grasp of the inventory either being considered for collateral or already part of an existing borrowing base.

Speaking of Dilution… A Guide to Dilution Analysis & Receivable Statistics (Part I)
By Joseph R. Caplan, President, Clear Choice Seminars
One of the most hotly debated areas of asset-based lending field exams is dilution and the related data stemming from the calculation of receivable roll-forward data, often called AR Stats. Bar-room level fights? Perhaps not, but business development officers and borrowers have pounded their fists in protest of the results and have been humbled by the findings.

Ten Hiding Places for Business Credit Risk
By Robert Wanuga, Senior Specialist Risk Manager, Atradius Trade Credit Insurance
The high-profile collapses of Worldcom, Adelphia and Parmalat clearly demonstrate the crucial need for financial professionals to look beyond the figures issued in corporate financial statements to get a true picture of a company's current and future financial health. To help with assessments of risk in borrowers' A/R, Atradius Trade Credit Insurance has developed a list of "Ten Hiding Places for Business Credit Risk."

Columns

PUTTING IT TOGETHER
LaSalle Business Credit & Archibald Candy: A Sweet Ending
By Michael D. Sharkey, President & Chief Executive Officer, LaSalle Business Credit
LaSalle Business Credit provided financing for Archibald Candy Corporation, helping keep the company operational and its workforce employed while it sought new ownership. This noteworthy transaction was recognized by the Turnaround Management Association as the Transaction of the Year for 2004.

LEGAL EYES
Don't Overreact After Discovering Borrower Fraud
By Robert M. Greenbaum, Partner & Jeremy W. Ryan, Associate, Saul Ewing
Sometimes a lender has little choice but to continue doing business with a borrower who has committed fraud to avoid or minimize losses.There is a fine line, however, between a lender taking sufficient action to protect its collateral and maximizing its own recovery, and overreacting to the point where the lender is held liable for damages to creditors.

FACTORING FOCUS
Trusting Your Gut… Assessing Character & Checking Collateral to Reduce Risk
By Michael Semanco, President & COO, Hennessey Capital
Even the most diligent factors will experience a fraud sometime in their careers and factors must take steps to protect themsleves and their resources. There are two major areas that factors must focus on in order to risk mitigate a transaction: character and collateral.

TURNAROUND CORNER
All EARS… A Basic Environmental Framework for Better Decisions & Risk Analysis
By William J. Hass, CEO, TeamWork Technologies
The epicenter of decision-making frameworks - a simple and elegant framework that works very well under many circumstances - turns out to be a basic, holistic and dynamic framework named EARS (Environment, Action and Response "to the" System degree). This article describes how this basic "environmental" framework has helped many companies reduce risk, evaluate turnaround plans and make better decisions.