Business Forum Looks at Leveraging Resources
Peter Ricchiuti, assistant dean at the A. B. Freeman School of Business, has seen Black Monday, the dot-com boom and bust, the subprime mortgage crisis and the worldwide financial meltdown, yet he's never seen anything quite like what's happening in today's credit markets.
“There's plenty of money out there but not a lot of appetite for risk,” says Peter Ricchuiti, assistant dean at the Freeman School of Business, who will moderate a panel on alternative capital markets at Friday's annual Tulane Business Forum. (Photo by Paula Burch-Celentano)
“The country is awash with cash, but if you're an individual or a small business, banks aren't lending,” says Ricchiuti. “There's plenty of money out there but not a lot of appetite for risk. Small businesses are really struggling and having to come up with innovative ways to come up with financing.”
This Friday (Oct. 8) at the 31st annual Tulane Business Forum, Ricchiuti will moderate a panel on innovative ways small businesses are coming up with financing. The forum, an annual presentation of the Tulane Association of Business Alumni, takes place at the New Orleans Sheraton Hotel.
Sitting on the panel will be J. Marshall Page, an attorney at Jones Walker law firm who specializes in private equity investments and leveraging state and federal tax incentives; Christopher Perry, who works with capital markets trading organizations at Thomson Reuters; and Nicolas Perkin, founder of the New Orleansâ“based Receivables Exchange, which enables small and medium-sized businesses to sell their accounts receivables.
The Receivables Exchange has established an online marketplace for businesses to auction off their receivables, making the financial transaction known as factoring in which businesses sell their invoices at a discount to obtain working capital much less costly and time consuming than conventional factoring deals.
“The Receivables Exchange is really one of the biggest stories in Louisiana,” Ricchiuti says.
In addition to the panel, this year's forum will also feature Dean Taylor, chair of Tidewater Inc.; Charles Kahn III, president and CEO of the Federation of American Hospitals; David Brain, president and CEO of Entertainment Properties Trust; Robbie Vitrano, chair of Trumpet; and John Winsor, CEO of Victors & Spoils.
