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Post by oldnick on Jun 24, 2015 17:07:40 GMT
Is that AC's new slogan?
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Post by oldnick on Jun 24, 2015 21:51:02 GMT
Or a cryptic crossword clue? It's going to keep me awake all night now.
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sl75
Posts: 2,092 
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Post by sl75 on Jun 24, 2015 23:52:42 GMT
For me it's overpromising, be that deal flow, update promises, drawdown estimates. You name it, it seems to be overpromised and underdelivered. It's largely unnecessary with a modicum of sensible forethought and realism based on past experience, and creates so many own-goals... I would note that RBS group (or at least my NatWest account in particular) demonstrated best practice here last week. Despite the initial fiasco caused by the error of failing to process huge numbers of payments, the same-day response was that payments "may be delayed until Saturday" - slated in the press as an unacceptably long delay. If AC had a similar situation, they'd probably have gone for an announcement like "we hope to get the payments through by tomorrow", which would have given less fuel for the press reports THAT day, but further criticism when the promise was broken, and people who'd delayed relevant plans (e.g. house purchases) left hugely frustrated for a second day running. In actual fact, the delayed payments arrived on the Friday - a day "early" (based on the actual, pessimistic, estimate). So, as rr, the single change I'd make would be from a mindset of making announcements like "we hope to get X done by [optimistic date]" to making announcements like "X may possibly be delayed until [pessimistic date]". If they really can't cope with the idea of not making the optimistic announcement, it's always possible to do both ("we hope to get X done by [optimistic date], but it may still be delayed until [pessimistic date]"). If nothing else, it may hold back some of the demands the day after [optimistic date] to know why X didn't happen until at least it is getting close to [pessimistic date].
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bigfoot12
Member of DD Central
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Likes: 816
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Post by bigfoot12 on Jun 25, 2015 8:14:33 GMT
It's difficult to nail it down to one item but it might come under the general heading of feeling AC is getting more 'ragged' operationally; there seems a deficit of robust and replicable processes. Accrued interest is constantly wrong and requires manual true-ups; this forces me to calculate a shadow NAV for the portfolio but AC can't be bothered to even give me a complete cashflow ladder to download. Not receiving my underwriter margin payments for three months due to poor IT infrastructure is unacceptable. AM market functionality is inferior to 12 months ago; we can't even discount loans now. Errors in loan documentation are not being corrected promptly even when lenders pinpoint issues; some documents are just not being uploaded for months. Loan monitoring is haphazard and variable; my concerns on F**m***h WT were simply ignored. The list goes on and on. None of it is, in isolation, damning but the collective effect undermines my confidence. Note that I don't have an issue with the market risk but the operational risk worries me. At what point does an oversight cause an impaired recovery? That these issues might impact attracting new lenders and thus the long-term viability of the platform is also a concern. When I started on AC, you were a start-up; I expected less and scaled my position accordingly. As a (modest) underwriter my position is larger, so my sensitivity is that much greater. You argue that AC is a mature platform worth £50mm+ but if the infrastructure still seems held together by rubber bands and sticky tape then I have no choice but to scale back my position. Please just focus on getting the basics right 99% of the time. What samford71 said. It seems that good procedures have not been put in place so that when the senior team are busy with other things (my guess quite a lot in the last six months, equity raising, institutional money, invoice discounting, new platform...) there are more mistakes than there should be in the everyday business, and sometimes these problems take too long to rectify.
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Post by andrewholgate on Jun 25, 2015 10:13:53 GMT
Or a cryptic crossword clue? It's going to keep me awake all night now. I'll leave you guessing.
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Post by jevans4949 on Jun 25, 2015 11:33:26 GMT
andrewholgate, On the subject of optimistic / pessimistic forecasts, and with no knowledge at all of the internal culture of AC, I wonder if it's worth reflecting on how the "minions" feel about reporting bad news, whether about borrowers or in-house cock-ups, to their seniors. Will they get a bollocking, or will it be "how can we fix this"?
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Post by andrewholgate on Jun 25, 2015 13:58:20 GMT
andrewholgate, On the subject of optimistic / pessimistic forecasts, and with no knowledge at all of the internal culture of AC, I wonder if it's worth reflecting on how the "minions" feel about reporting bad news, whether about borrowers or in-house cock-ups, to their seniors. Will they get a bollocking, or will it be "how can we fix this"? Very much Bob T Builder style.
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Post by jevans4949 on Jun 25, 2015 14:40:18 GMT
andrewholgate, On the subject of optimistic / pessimistic forecasts, and with no knowledge at all of the internal culture of AC, I wonder if it's worth reflecting on how the "minions" feel about reporting bad news, whether about borrowers or in-house cock-ups, to their seniors. Will they get a bollocking, or will it be "how can we fix this"? Very much Bob T Builder style. Good to know. Sometimes as organisations grow, the initial camaraderie gets lost.
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Post by andrewholgate on Jun 25, 2015 14:49:31 GMT
Very much Bob T Builder style. Good to know. Sometimes as organisations grow, the initial camaraderie gets lost. We've hobbled the camaraderie horse and tethered it outside the building.
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Post by jevans4949 on Jun 25, 2015 15:22:26 GMT
Good to know. Sometimes as organisations grow, the initial camaraderie gets lost. We've hobbled the camaraderie horse and tethered it outside the building. As long as nobody is going to find its head in their bed!
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Post by oldnick on Jun 25, 2015 17:28:17 GMT
Or a cryptic crossword clue? It's going to keep me awake all night now. I'll leave you guessing. OK, this is where I've got to so far: Now worries - a reference to the zeitgeist, or contemporary concerns, well that's green issues. So this may be a veiled reference to the GEIA. Fairer growth together - what to do with such a bland platitude... wait a minute, blond platts! The GEIA is going platinum! Huh?
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tonyr
Member of DD Central
Posts: 477
Likes: 258
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Post by tonyr on Jun 25, 2015 18:47:20 GMT
For me it's overpromising, be that deal flow, update promises, drawdown estimates. You name it, it seems to be overpromised and underdelivered. It's largely unnecessary with a modicum of sensible forethought and realism based on past experience, and creates so many own-goals... ... So, as rr, the single change I'd make would be from a mindset of making announcements like "we hope to get X done by [optimistic date]" to making announcements like "X may possibly be delayed until [pessimistic date]". If they really can't cope with the idea of not making the optimistic announcement, it's always possible to do both ("we hope to get X done by [optimistic date], but it may still be delayed until [pessimistic date]"). If nothing else, it may hold back some of the demands the day after [optimistic date] to know why X didn't happen until at least it is getting close to [pessimistic date]. I strongly disagree with your first suggestion. What I really want to see is honesty and a knowledge of the business they are running, so the phrase "we expect that drawdown will occur on XX/YY/2015" really means expectation in the statistical sense (that is an average value sampled over repeated events or a weighted sum of the likelihoods over time). I agree is that what we have now is overpromising and underdelivering, even after a post on promising not to do this by AH. We do now have expected drawdown dates, which is certainly a step in the right direction. What I want now is that these are an honest guess at what might happen.
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Post by Duane Dibley on Jul 5, 2015 16:30:31 GMT
Andrew Holgate, could you please please please spell your company name correctly?
Everyone knows it's Assetz Kapital innit.
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Post by wildlife2 on Jul 5, 2015 17:20:26 GMT
Now just a baseball cap and the Assetz Boyz will be well wivvit. 
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Post by maxeys on Jul 8, 2015 11:43:54 GMT
Monitoring of all loans (defaulted or not) on a regular basis. Another p2p company monitors theirs every 30/60 days. I have seen it too often that all of a sudden loans are defaulting without any prior notice. If this regular monitoring and transparent communication is in place it would give lenders an opportunity to try and exit loans before the 'lock in' starts.
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