Wednesday, May 19 - continued
dor Compliance, as well as a discussion of best practices, score cards, and
how automation and workflow can help accounts receivable managers create
an advantaged supply chain and accounts receivable practice.
18067. Standby Letters of Credit
Speaker: Buddy Baker, Fifth Third Bank
(This session is offered again in session #18096.)
Many people think of standby letters of credit as nearly equivalent to cash. What
they don’t realize is that many letters of credit don’t get paid when called upon.
Most often this is due to misunderstanding how standbys work and then failing
to present the documents correctly; indeed, occasionally it is not even possible
to present the documents that are called for. Sometimes it is because the bank
that issued the standby is ordered not to pay by a court either because the
customer has gone bankrupt and payment is deemed a preference (exactly
what you thought the standby was protecting you against) or because the customer claims you have no right to the payment and has managed to get an
injunction. And sometimes it is because the bank that issued the standby has
been declared insolvent and the regulators (e.g., the FDIC) have repudiated
the standby. This session will take an in-depth look at how standby letters of
credit work and the reasons they sometimes don’t. Learn how to protect yourself against non-payment.
18068. Navigating the Tropical Storm—
Overcoming Negativity in the Workplace
B
Speaker: Karen Purves, M.A., Innovative Impact
Deal with difficult people? Spend most of your day handling personality conflicts among staff or clients? Explore 14 different ways people express negativity and learn a tip for dealing with each one. You’ll learn innovative techniques
on handling a broad spectrum of negative personality styles—and see how you
can adjust your own attitude! Receive tips on exactly what to say to whom,
so you can go back to work and do something different immediately. After
participating in this program attendees, on average, said their ability to handle
negative situations in the workplace improved 28%.
18069. An Economic Update: Is This the
Recovery We Heard So Much About?
Speaker: Chris Kuehl, Ph.D., Armada Corporate Intelligence
(This session is offered again in #18089.)
We are now out of the recession and well into economic recovery. Does it feel
that way? In some ways the economy will doubtless be much improved by this
summer, but many serious issues will remain for most of the credit community. The government is far more engaged with the economy now than in previous
years and that presents both opportunities and threats. Now that we are recovering, when do we see jobless totals decline, and when do the credit markets
open up again? How long before inflation is the major issue of concern? When
do we actually face the implications of the deficit that has been created? For all
the political observers in the session, we will also ponder what the economy will
mean for the 2010 elections.
18070. A Retrospective on What Happened
to Retail in 2008 and 2009
Speaker: Mark Berman, Esq., Nixon Peabody, LLP
Looking back at 2008 and 2009, why did so many retailers file Chapter 11
cases and why did virtually all of those cases end up as liquidations rather
than reorganizations? Some have argued that the failure rate was the result of
many retailers borrowing too much money during the easy money days earlier
this decade that used more complicated structures, including first and second
lien financing, so there was less available collateral value for the lenders when
the tough times presented themselves. Others have suggested that the 2005
amendments to the Bankruptcy Act made a retailer’s reorganization in a Chapter 11 case much more difficult to pull off so the Chapter 11 cases that started
with good promise failed to make it to a confirmed plan and finally resulted in
liquidations. This session explores these and other explanations and what the
future may have in store for retail.
18071. Transformation in Credit Management: Gaining Better
Visibility Into Vendor Compliance to Avoid Deductions
Moderator: C.J. Wimley, AvantGard, SunGard
In an effort to mitigate bad debt expe