What do you mean you’ve never had it so bad?

Just come back from an excellent breakfast presentation at Clydesdale Bank given by NAB (their parent company) head of markets strategy Nick Parsons, a man well known to Sky News viewers.

Nick is someone who seems to have developed a habit of getting it right when it comes to economic forecasting, so when he says that 2009 is going to be horrible and that recovery won’t start until 2010 you tend to take a bit of notice. He sees the UK economy declining by about 2.6% in 2009, with growth returning in 2010 at about 1.4%. His long term view is that the normal annual growth trend will settle at about 2%. Not brilliant but still enough encouragement for businesses, while still remaining cautious, to start focusing on how to get the best of the upturn when it arrives.

By the way, if you think it is bad for us over borrowed consumption obsessed Brits, have a glance at the poor Germans and Japanese, those nations that actually still make things (as opposed to money) and still put their euros and yen aside for a rainy day. Their export driven economies have fallen off a cliff over the past few months and their pain in 2009 is likely to be greater than that of the UK. Maybe there is a moral there somewhere, although it gets confused when you look at the two economies that are going to expand more that 5% in 2009, China and India. Learning to export may still have its advantages so UK companies should take note and start looking at how they can.

Antony Doggwiler

I've got the brains you've got the looks.....

Back in the 80s the Pet Shop Boys banged on that "There's a lot of opportunities, if you know when to take them, if there aren't, you can make them".

It is easy to think at the moment that opportunities are in short supply but talking to Henry Camilleri of independent financial advisors Camilleri Associates this morning at a breakfast seminar organised by Clydesdale Bank, it was interesting to hear that he has used the current wave of redundancies by major insurance and investment firms to increase his network of experienced financial advisors. As he said, the chance to bring on board some highly talented people that would not normally be available to him was too good to pass up, and has enabled him to add some weight to the strategy that he has set out for himself to improve his business in 2009. This was one of the points we made in our recent SMART presentation so it was good to hear of a practical example.

The topic today’s seminar was 'Doing business in a slowing economy' with Terry Irwin of TCii Strategic and Management Consultants, a common enough theme perhaps, but the point that companies need to get back to the basics of financial management in order to survive and thrive in the current market bears repeating again and again. Our hosts Clydesdale Bank also made this point in relation to the fact that their parent company National Australia Bank is currently one of the few banks that is relatively unscathed by the current banking turmoil. Terry Irwin believes that we should hit the bottom of this recession during 2009, with some small signs of recovery starting at the end of 2009 or beginning of 2010. Given the speed that the economy is unravelling, I would agree with his assessment about reaching the bottom, but would suggest that businesses adopt the advice of the Pet Shop Boys regarding opportunities in order to plot their own course to recovery outside of any general economic improvement. Henry’s actions above are good start along this road.