Archive for August 2011

Home Business Success IN 21 Simple Steps

Have you ever dreamt of owning a successful home business? People all over the country are looking for more control over their lives by starting a home business. Home business success is becoming more and more recognized as times go by.

Success stories abound of people who have started home based businesses that have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Home business success is more achievable and ideal because it saves the start up and the overhead costs associated with running a commercial premise.

Home business success is within your grasp if you can comply with these 21 easy steps;

Get a physical location within your house to host your business. It can be a separate room, the garage, the attic or anywhere that can hold your business equipment and enough for you to work comfortably in.

Home business success requires time. How much time are you willing to devote to your business to ensure it succeeds? You need to make a weekly schedule of all your activities at home, outside the home and decide where and how to place your business.

What do you like to do? What need can this fill for your future clients? Home business success stems from natural talents that fulfill needs and are nurtured into reality and later into riches. We can help you with ideas at the end of this article.

Go solo. The legal form of this is sole proprietorship. This is the easiest way to start because you are the boss so the profits are all yours, the work is cheaper to organize, you enjoy some tax savings although you need to notify the IRS for sales tax reasons. You will ensure home business success because you will have to prove to yourself that you can succeed, hence you will be more driven to do so.

You can get more information on this from the U.S. Small Business Association (SBA) publication MP25 about other business forms available. You can also seek further clarification by consulting an attorney.

Start small, that is, start with your own money. This is because you and your idea are still new and unproven so you may not qualify for a loan or getting trusted investors.

Info, info info. Home business success is only possible with extensive research on your type of business. Visit your local library or book store and research information on the business that interests you.

Location, location, location. Find how the location of your home is zoned and what restrictions apply. Also reread your lease. Home business success here will depend on what your neighbors perceive so don’t upset them.

First things first. Before you begin anything decide on a business name and have it registered. This will keep your business name unique to you only.

See your business on paper first. Nothing ensures home business success like a well written business plan.  This plan covers all areas of the business. A good place to start would be SBA publication #M925, The Business Plan for Home-based Business.

You need a number to identify you always. If you are alone you can use your Social Security number or Employee Identification Number (EIN) as the business number on official forms. However, when you grow and get employees or you change into a corporation, you must apply for an EIN. The IRS centre nearest you can supply you with Form SS-4 (Application for Employer Identification Number) for filling and later filing.

If you are planning to sell something, you need to find out whether you need to include sales tax in the costing. Call your local tax agency to explain the procedure on acquiring a sales tax permit.

All cities and counties have their own regulations on obtaining the necessary license or permit to operate your kind of business. Consult City Hall and the Chamber of Commerce for this very important information.

How do you want people to see you? Good, of course. A graphic designer or a creative printer can make you look good on your business stationery, like cards, brochures and other business stationery. You can only ensure home business success if your first impressions last.

Separate your business money by shopping around for a checking account with good and flexible services. A place to start is at your local bank. Also find out about credit card services so that you can make buying from you easy for your customers. If the business cannot have its own credit card then you need to set aside a personal credit card for the business only. You can track your income and expenses this way to ensure home business success. Convenient buying procedures for your customers will accelerate your journey to home business success.

Records, records, records. Home business success will not materialize unless you keep meticulous records. You can start manually with efficient records for bookkeeping to track income and expenses, travel and mileage, correspondences, invoices, suppliers, clients etc. You will only reach home business success to the level that you keep your work records. Learn important information on record keeping from IRS publication # 583 Information for business tax payers.

The big bad wolf. Familiarize yourself with the entire IRS requirement for operating your business. You can actually save some money when using your home for business purposes by consulting IRS publication #587 Business Use of the Home. Other important forms are ;

Schedule SE (compensation of Social Security Self Employment Tax)

Schedule 104 ES (estimated Tax for Individuals)

You may need to file these when the time comes. Keep the IRS happy and your own home business success is assured.

Start with the basics. List all the things you need to start the business and then shop for inexpensive places to get them e.g. garage sales, classified ads etc. Beware of overspending here.

Are you reachable at all times? You can use your own personal phone but the best is to get a separate phone line for the business. The idea is to track business call expenses. Have an answering machine working when you are away. If your prospective customers can reach you at all times, they will assure your home business success, because you can respond to queries faster and stay ahead of competition.

Get a post office box to make your business look more official. Find out the rates especially bulk rates if you are doing bulk mail deliveries.  For packages, United Parcel Service (UPS) is cheaper than the Post Office.

How much liability can your home business take? Check with your homeowners’ insurance agent for a rider on your existing policy. You need to have adequate personal and product liability insurance. Shop around for the best deal.  You can save money on medical insurance by joining an associations’ group plan e.g. The National Association for the self employed on 800-527-5504. A home business success story can become a failed statistic because of inadequate coverage during the difficult times.

Clean up and shape up. Have a garage sale and clear all accumulated clutter. Have a family meeting and organize the team so that the home keeps running efficiently while you work. Have a note book to record all your daily tasks. The most important ingredient for home business success is a work schedule that is disciplined and result oriented.

Home business success is achievable and the journey enjoyable because you are doing the work you love and making money as a consequence. 

Written by Debasmita Rout

Economic News Rising Stars

Financial News Rising Stars

Because of their youth, these young men and women have no preconceived notions of how things “should” be accomplished, and are not constrained by a classic mindset.

Feras Al-Chalabi
Partner, Odey Asset Management
Al-Chalabi joined Odey in 1999 and manages .2bn of long-only funds. This year he has made returns of 11% for Odey’s flagship continental Europe fund, ranking it in the leading 10% of peers more than 1, three and five years. Al-Chalabi has focused on investing in luxury goods, a sector which has aroused fund managers’ interests since of its exposure to high-growth emerging markets. He remains bullish on Europe “as focus turns from the pantomime of the PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain) to the boom times in Germany”.

Reza Amiri
Founder, Susa Fund Management
Former Citadel portfolio manager Amiri launched his new fund Susa in March last year and because then it has returned practically 40%.

He began his career as an M&ampA banker in New York prior to joining private equity firm Bain Capital and moving to London to concentrate on European buyouts. In 2003 he joined start-up hedge fund Bailey Coates, a spin-off from Perry Capital, then moved to Citadel in 2005. Amiri collects old stock and bond certificates, which decorate Susa’s Berkeley Street offices.

Asita Anche
Managing director, Goldman Sachs
High-frequency, quant-driven trader Anche was snapped up by Goldman Sachs in August to assist create its fixed-income industry-generating unit. She graduated from the University of Illinois with a masters in computer science in 2009 and her very first job was in the high-frequency trading group at Citadel in the US. Twenty months later she moved to the HFT team in Europe. In 2009, Anche joined Millennium Capital Management, which is renowned for giving traders a high degree of autonomy.

George Andreadis
Head of European liquidity strategy for advanced execution services, Credit Suisse
Former London Stock Exchange trader Andreadis is spearheading Credit Suisse’s dark pool strategy. He works in the advanced execution services group and after 4 years at the firm has became the face of Credit Suisse on market structure initiatives. He narrowly missed out on winning the most promising rising star at this year’s annual Economic News awards for excellence in trading and technology. For the duration of his six years at the LSE, he built and ran the Fix Gateway connectivity service.

Danielle Ballardie
Vice-president, equities electronic trading, Barclays Capital
Ballardie joined BarCap last year to run Liquidity Cross, the bank’s fledgling anonymous trading platform, and has been charged with producing it a marketplace leader in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, in the face of stiff competition. Just before BarCap, Ballardie spent eight years working for the London Stock Exchange on product development for its alternative trading venue Baikal, technologies sales and the exchange’s strategy and preparation for the European Commission’s markets in economic instruments directive.

Julian Barnett
Founder, Ridley Park Capital
Formerly one of Polar Capital’s best-performing managers, Barnett set up on his own last year after seven years at Polar. In the five years to 2008 he clocked an average annual return of 28% for the firm’s 5m Paragon fund. And much more remarkably, he returned 20% in 2008, when the typical hedge fund was down almost the same amount. Ridley Park Capital – the hedge fund firm that Barnett kicked off in June with 0m – has considering that grown to about 0m. Barnett began managing money in UK equities at Close Brothers in 1999.

James Baugh
Director, client relationship management at Turquoise, London Stock Exchange
Baugh was promoted to his current role in February when the LSE purchased multi-lateral trading facility Turquoise. He is spearheading its sales efforts and has already elevated Turquoise’s share of European money equity trading from much less than 3% to nearly 5%, grown its dark book to a leading position in Europe in terms of volume traded and migrated to a new low-latency technologies platform in October. He was previously head of client management for the LSE’s dark pool Baikal.

Mark Beeston
Chief executive, portfolio risk services, Icap
Former Deutsche Bank trader Beeston credits his father’s influence for his “entrepreneurial spirit and drive”. He joined Icap a year ago, charged with expanding its post-trade services division, and got off to a flying begin with the acquisition of TriOptima, a post-trade infrastructure provider for more than-the-counter derivatives, and is investing in collateral management messaging firm AcadiaSoft. He has also been promoted to Icap’s global executive management group. Beeston says his greatest achievement was developing credit default swap affirmation platform T-Zero, which is now portion of IntercontinentalExchange.

Greg Greatest
Managing director, cash trading desk, Morgan Stanley
Very best was widely regarded as one of Lehman Brothers’ top money equities traders, and was part of the team that built Lehman into a leading-five equity franchise from scratch when he started in 1999. He joined Morgan Stanley in July to look following the so-named super sectors, covering technologies, media and telecoms, natural resources and utilities. Industry insiders have picked him out as a future head of cash equities trading, simply because his in-depth information and client relationships give him an edge as an execution adviser.

Stephen Birch
Partner and head of manager research, Hymans Robertson
The pensions market is undergoing dramatic modifications, and Birch is laying the foundations for both himself and his firm to not only embrace that change but thrive on it. Birch has been instrumental in transforming the manager investigation approach at Hymans, and his team now has responsibility for placing up to £10bn of UK pension fund assets per year with investment managers. Colleagues describe him as “a figurehead for external investment manager relationships in the UK institutional industry”.

Jeff Blumberg
Chief executive, Egerton Capital
Soon after a decade at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, where he was chief operating officer overseeing the manager’s external hedge fund investments in Europe and Asia, Blumberg quit this year to join hedge fund pioneer John Armitage’s firm Egerton in June. He picked a high-calibre hedge fund to run – Egerton’s flagship lengthy/short equity hedge fund has returned 16% annualised since it launched in 1994. Harvard-educated Blumberg has represented the US and Canada at international squash and is also a keen photographer.

Nils Bolmstrand
Chief executive, Skandia Investment Group
A Swede who studied in Spain and has worked in European, Asian, South African and Latin American markets brings a genuinely international flavour to Skandia’s investment arm. Bolmstrand replaced Jamie Macleod in the leading job at the UK’s biggest multi-manager operation in September last year. He has been at the organization because it launched in 2007, responsible for item development, distribution and managing relationships with other fund groups, and was previously in charge of Skandia Fonder, the Swedish fund management organization.

Eamon Brabazon
Head of Emea private equity exit company, JP Morgan
Brabazon was named most promising rising star at the Private Equity News advisory services awards last month. Twelve months right after he became head of JP Morgan’s exit business, the bank has the highest deal tally of any bank this year at 23 either completed or in the pipeline, including the acquisition of Gatwick Airport by Global Infrastructure Partners. Brabazon is also a member of JP Morgan’s liability management team. Outside work, he enjoys skiing, biking, boating and visiting his summer home in picturesque Irish coastal town Kinsale with his household.

Charlotte Burkeman
Co-head of prime brokerage, Emea, UBS
Burkeman is a driven saleswoman. Having started her career in Goldman Sachs’ capital introduction team, she joined UBS seven years ago as component of the Swiss bank’s push to break Goldman’s and Morgan Stanley’s stranglehold more than European prime brokerage. In 2006 she moved to the US as UBS’s global head of capital introduction and was promoted to co-head of US prime brokerage sales. In May, she moved back to London into her present role alongside Ashley McLucas.

Liam Camburn
Director, private equity transaction services team, Deloitte
An avid sports fan, Camburn credits his senior school economics teacher for diverting his attention from tennis and rugby to the world of business and finance.
He trained as an accountant at Arthur Andersen and for the past 10 years has provided monetary due diligence for private equity deals. He worked for Andersen, Deloitte and KPMG, then spent a year as an investment manager at mid-market buyout house Rutland Partners ahead of returning to Deloitte in July 2008.
He has worked on some of the greatest buyouts of the year, which includes 3 for US private equity giant KKR – the €1.3bn acquisition of a majority stake in Nordic software program services firm Visma, a €700m investment in aviation firm Grupo Inaer and the £995m acquisition of Pets at House.
In spite of the delicate state of the economy, Camburn says he is an optimist on macro issues, and believes uncertainty leads to opportunity. He follows the mantra of “obtaining the basics correct and keeping points easy, or you finish up creating on weak foundations”.
He still plays rugby each and every week, even though he expects that will change in the new year with the birth of his initial child.

Tavis Cannell
Managing director, special scenarios group, Goldman Sachs
Promoted to managing director last month, Cannell manages the private capital enterprise of Goldman’s particular circumstances group, focused on investing in a range of opportunities across various business sectors, such as performing and non-performing debt, hybrid and junior financing, structured equity, and rescue finance – each debt and equity. Just before joining Goldman in 2005 he worked in Morgan Stanley’s equity capital markets, M&ampA advisory and actual estate private equity organizations and also as director for a logistics company in Kenya.

Maxime Carmignac
Portfolio manager, Carmignac Gestion
The daughter of the founder of €33bn French asset manager Carmignac Gestion, Carmignac this year returned to the firm she is tipped 1 day to lead. She manages the firm’s only hedge fund, the €120m market-neutral fund she helped set up in 2007 before quitting to acquire analyst encounter at Cheyne Hedge Fund in London and Visium Asset Management in New York. She is applying a high-conviction approach at stock, sector and macro level to chase double-digit return targets.

Rose Chamberlayne
Senior associate, Lawrence Graham
Chamberlayne works for some of the world’s richest families on dynastic structures for wealth preservation. She lately advised a high-profile household in the Middle East on a sharia compliant structure and is also focusing on asset protection, especially for wealthy Russian clients. She has been liaising with Bahamian authorities on new legislation soon to come into impact, and is on course to turn into a partner next year. Her very first baby is due in January.

Esther Chan
Portfolio manager, emerging marketplace debt, Aberdeen Asset Management
Singaporean Chan’s childhood ambition was to join the army, and despite the fact that she hasn’t fulfilled it she undoubtedly enjoys gruelling physical challenges. This year she completed the Tough Guy race, an assault course by means of eight miles of mud, underwater tunnels, barbed wire fences, broken glass and fire walks, and has recently completed a 134-metre bungee jump.
Chan applies her competitive nature to her work. She joined Aberdeen’s Singapore office in 2005, helping to manage much more than bn of challenging currency assets in Asian bonds. She joined the emerging marketplace desk in London in 2007 and works on a team managing nearly bn of emerging market bonds, specialising in Latin America and Asia corporate bonds. In the past 12 months she has driven the launch of a dedicated emerging markets corporate bond fund. Ahead of Aberdeen, Chan worked for John Moore Associates as a corporate finance analyst, advising businesses undergoing debt restructuring in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Tony Chedraoui
Founder, Tyrus Capital
Chedraoui’s hedge fund firm Tyrus Capital was 1 of the biggest launches of last year, rapidly raising .8bn and closing to new cash. He cut his teeth at Lehman Brothers, initially on the sellside and then running a proprietary trading method, prior to moving to Deephaven Capital, exactly where he was in charge of its European event-driven enterprise. Chedraoui studied at the American University in Beirut just before winning a scholarship to do a masters degree at the elite Hautes Études Commerciales in Paris.