Text 1B
Read the text and answer the question: what links do you think exist between the banks suffering ‘bad debts’ and the small firms’ falling orders and difficulties in borrowing money?
Small Firms Face Squeeze
The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) will present a deeply pessimistic report on small companies this Tuesday. There is evidence that small companies are suffering as much from increasingly restrictive lending policies by the banks as from high interest rates.
Small businesses are complaining that banks are preventing them from expanding, and sometimes even surviving, by turning off the lending tap. The clearing banks, which have announced poor results over the last few days, are struggling to stop a mounting tide of bad debts among their UK business customers.
For the first time in years, small firms are as gloomy as big ones, says Tom O’Connor, chairman of the CBI’s smaller firms council.
Last week’s CBI quarterly industrial survey, covering all sizes of companies, showed that only 19 per cent had experienced an increase in orders in the previous four months, while 38 per cent had suffered a drop.
Text 1C
Read the text and answer the questions:
What does the term a sole trader mean?
What is partnership?
What sorts of businesses are run as partnerships?
4. What type of a business do you think Sue would like to form?
Sole Traders and Partnership
Sue Thomas has just been made redundant from her job as a manageress in a local factory. She has plenty of ideas on how to spend her redundancy payment of £5000. After much thought she has decided to open a clothes shop for women and children in her hometown.
Her cousin Paula Marsh is a manager at a local bank and unsurprisingly Sue has turned to her for advice. They spent a long while together discussing plans for Sue’s business and Paula was able to give her some good advice. Paula and Sue chatted about finding a suitable empty shop and how much rent Sue could afford to pay; they also discussed Sue’s likely sales. Paula argued that some research was essential to find out whether Sue would have sufficient customers to make her business profitable.
‘Are you going to form a company, Sue’, asked Paula, ‘or will you find someone to join you in a partnership? Sue was unsure what these terms meant and asked Paula to explain.
‘When you walk down the High Street in Wimberly [a nearby town]’, began Paula,’ you must notice the names above the shops and other businesses that are there. In the side roads there are little businesses like Jones’s Newsagents who deliver your papers each morning. We call this type of business a sole trader or sole proprietor. It is owned and managed by just one person; although, if large enough, there may be other employees. It is very easy and cheap to set up and consequently is a very popular type of businesses.
‘Sounds just right for me’, exclaimed Sue. ‘I’ll start my business as a sole trader’.
‘Hold on. Sue! There are other possibilities. When you bought your new house, you saw it advertised in West, Marsh and Curwen, the estate agents in Morris Street. They are an example of a partnership which exists when at least two people decide to join together to run a business. They usually all put in money and share any profits that are made’. “Yes”, said Sue slowly,’ I can see that taking a partner would have advantages’.
Mini-presentation
You are asked to give a short talk on a business topic. You have to choose one of the topics from the four below and then talk for about three minutes.
1.Russian Economy
2. British Economy
3.Types of business
4.Economic environment
The ability to make a short presentation is a key business skill that enables you to communicate statistical information, present ideas and persuade people of the strengths of your argument. To do this effectively you need to prepare.
Make a plan of your talk. This should include at least three sections:
introduction
development
conclusion
Write detailed notes of what you will say, showing
key points and keywords
transitions between the different sections
visual aids you will refer to
the action points you will stress
Practice you presentation to make sure that
you use simple and clear language
your talk doesn’t go over the time available
you will not need to read from your notes
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