The Factoring Force BIG Blog

At the recent annual meeting of the International Factors Group (IFG), the Polish company Pekao Faktoring was named as the #1 factoring company in the region. The IFG meeting was held in St. Petersburg (Russia, that is) in October.

Of course, the company was thrilled with their recognition and the president,  Mirosław Jakowiecki, declared, “I am proud of these realizing that such a position covers not only Poland. It means, Pekao Faktoring is the best Factor in Central – East Europe as well.”

Of course, my fascination with the international factoring community led me to explore the Pekao Faktoring company website to see what this firm is about. Fortunately, the website has an English translation version and I was able to review the entire site in my native tongue. The website is attractive though a bit lacking in substantive information about factoring and the services provided by Pekao. Naturally, I’m comparing this to the sometimes terribly wordy and overblown sites that many U.S. factors present online.

There was, however, one very unique statement that appeared right on the About Us page of the Pekao Faktoring website. It reads as follows:

“Pekao Faktoring is a company fending for employees helping to develop professional skills and guarantying workplace for mothers with child. The team grows, within last two years in the families of Pekao Faktoring employees 25 children were born.”

Now I dare you to find me one other major finance company that boasts of the birth-rate of its employees. Apparently, Pekao is looking for a few good women and is willing to create a family friendly workplace to attract them. So Pekao is not only the #1 receivables factoring company in the region, it is a factoring company that factors in the well-being of the families of its employees. And that is a strong factor in their favor.

Na zdrowie, Pekao! Stolat!

In a press release issued today, Homex, one of Mexico’s leading home builders, announced their satisfaction with FOVISSSTE, a Mexican mortgage company, for implementing a factoring program with Mexico’s National Development Bank.

The CFO of Homex stated that the factoring initiative “will help us realize important efficiencies in our collection process.”

Now I’m not quite sure what the CFO is referring to here or what exactly the structure of the factoring program is. It is not really clear who is receiving financing. It appears that Homex is able to factor receivables through this program but receivables from whom? If consumers are purchasing directly from Homex and they are receiving mortgages from FOVISSSTE, then that is merely a mortgage loan. Somehow, payment is expedited in this process but the details are pretty murky.

So, I would advise the Homex PR team that, if they want to maximize the impact of an announcement such as this, it would help to give more details as to exactly how this benefits them. It appears that the financial and investment community is the target of this release but I’m not quite sure what the analysts are supposed to glean from this type of statement.

If I come across anything else I’ll publish it but if anyone else can shed some light on this let us know with a comment.