Chapter 9
Financing Characteristics
A full set of tables is available in the Statistical Tables section. Please view Tables 32 to 37 in conjunction with this chapter.
9.1 Years with main bank or fi nancial institution
New Zealand businesses appear to have long-term relationships with their main bank or fi nancial institutions. Seventy percent of businesses had a relationship of 4 or more years; 36 percent for more than 10 years. This trend was also related to business age. Seventy-two percent of businesses that were 6 months to 3 years old had a relationship with their main bank or fi nancial institution of 4 years or less. However, 86 percent of businesses over 3 years old had a relationship of 4 years or more. The result for businesses 6 months to 3 years old seems to suggest some respondents interpreted this relationship as between themselves and the fi nancial institution, rather than the business and the fi nancial institution. Figure 9.01 displays trends by business size.
Figure 9.01
Businesses in the Accommodation, Cafes and Restaurants industry spent fewer years with fi nancial institutions than other industries. Nearly half of businesses in this industry had a relationship with their main fi nancial institution of 3 or fewer years and only 17 percent for more than 10 years. Information from the Statistics New Zealand business demography dataset shows that this industry also has the lowest continuation rates, which suggests a higher than average level of business churn.
9.2 Franchise businesses
Very few businesses are engaged in franchising. The survey found that only 8 percent of businesses were franchises. Larger fi rms were more likely to be franchises, with 17 percent of businesses with
Business Finance in New Zealand 2004
9.3 Number of owners
Eighty-six percent of businesses had either one or two owners. However, as could be expected, larger businesses were more likely to have three or more owners. Figure 9.02 shows the number of owners for different size business groups.
Figure 9.02
These results refl ect the high number of small businesses in New Zealand.
9.4 Characteristics of person primarily responsible for arranging fi nance
Seventy-four percent of businesses had one person primarily responsible for arranging fi nance. Cross-tabulations of survey results showed that there were no notable differences in other fi nancial characteristics for the group of businesses that had more than one person arranging fi nance by business size, age or industry. The following results are from the subset of businesses that have one person arranging fi nance.Owner v non-owner
In the instances where only one person arranged fi nance, the results show that in 94 percent of cases that person was the business owner. In businesses with 1 to 20 employees the corresponding proportion was similar at 95 percent. This result refl ects the proportionally high number of small owner/ operator businesses in the New Zealand economy. Larger businesses were more likely to have non-owners arranging fi nance, with 26 percent of businesses with 101 to 500 employees doing this. Gender
In businesses where one person arranges fi nance, the survey found that in 77 percent of these cases, the person arranging fi nance was male. The industries with the greatest proportion of females arranging fi nance were Education (49 percent) and Health and Community Services (41 percent). Variation across industries is shown in Figure 9.03.
Figure 9.03
Age
People in older age brackets were more likely to be the person arranging business fi nance than people in younger age brackets. Seventy-fi ve percent of the people arranging fi nance were 40 years or older and 40 percent were 50 years or older.
Experience
The typical person arranging fi nance is experienced in business. Sixty-eight percent of people arranging business fi nance had more than 10 years experience. Younger businesses were more likely to have less experienced people arranging fi nance. Twenty-eight percent of businesses between 6 months and 3 years old had their fi nance arranged by people with 4 years or less experience.
9.5 Individual characteristics where one person arranges fi nance
The survey also asked two specifi c questions on the individual characteristics of the people who answered the survey. This was done because the characteristics in question – ethnicity and qualifi cations – were thought to be personal characteristics which may not be known accurately by individuals other than the person they apply to. This forms a further subset of the overall sample as some respondents answered the previous business characteristics questions about people other than themselves.
Ethnicity
Where one person arranged fi nance and that person answered the survey, most recorded themselves as New Zealand European (84 percent). There was little variance on this result by business size, age or industry. The highest number of Mäori was recorded in the Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing and Transport industries, with 13 and 10 percent respectively.
It is worth noting that these results are also a refl ection of New Zealand’s business demographic. For example, the Mäori and Pacifi c workforce has proportionally lower numbers of self-employed and
Business Finance in New Zealand 2004
The results varied across industries. For example:
•
30 percent of people in the Road Transport and Services to Transport industry had no qualifi cation (overall result 11 percent)•
51 percent of people in the Communications Services industry had only a secondary school qualifi cation (overall result 27 percent)•
45 percent of people in the Construction industry had a trade certifi cate (overall result 20 percent)Business characteristics
Proportion with relationship of more than 4 years 70% with main financial institution
Proportion of businesses that are franchises 8% Proportion of businesses with 1 or 2 owners 86% Proportion of businesses where 1 person arranges finance 74% Personal characteristics (for person arranging finance)
Person is an owner 94%
Person is over 40 years of age 75%
Person has over 10 years industry experience 68% Gender: – Male 77% – Female 23%
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INANCING CHARACTERISTICS
Financing Characteristics
9.6 Chapter summary
4.6 Chapter Summary: Debt finance requested 5.5 Chapter Summary: Equity finance requested 6.3 Chapter Summary: Both debt and equity requested 7.10 Chapter Summary: Current financial structure 8.4 Chapter Summary: Security9.6 Chapter Summary: Financing characteristics