Question

As a private limited firm dealing with garment manufacturing, you have little cash in hand but considerable business potential. You suddenly get an order to deliver 1,000 shirts at a price of $50 each. You have the entire infrastructure in place, but need $15,000 to procure the fabric and accessories for shirts. How will you raise money to serve this order? How will the answer differ if the business is a sole proprietorship?

Answer 1

A private limited firm refers to a corporation. A corporation’s internal sources of financing are mostly limited to its retained profits, and money realized from the sale of its assets. In case of the given example, because the company does not have enough cash on hand, it will have to rely on several external sources of financing. The most important source of procuring financing for the company is a bank loan. Thus, the company can raise money from institutions such as banks or other creditors in the form of loans. The company will need to repay loans in the future, and therefore the company will record this as a liability in its accounts. However, these ways of procuring money would help the company arrange $15,000 in order to purchase the fabric and other accessories.

The sources of financing will remain the same even in the case of a sole proprietorship; that is, retained earnings or loans from external sources such as banks. However, in the case of a public limited company, the answer would change. In the case of a public limited business, it has another option of raising financing through the issue of common or equity shares.