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sthénie protestataire.
niveau de délégation
Mar 4, 2020 15:48
4 yrs ago
52 viewers *
French term

propriétaire

French to English Bus/Financial Finance (general)
From a letter from an insurance company offering to buy another company it does business with. The potential buyer wants an opportunity to check the books and conduct an audit to make sure everything is kosher. This is among the things it will be looking out for:

Tout élément du BFR non ***propriétaire*** (en transit dans le bilan), sans que ce ne soit limitatif : dettes fournisseurs compagnies et apporteurs nettes des éventuelles créances clients compagnies (primes appelées auprès des clients et non encaissées si la comptabilisation est à l’encaissement)

The term also appears in this sentence:
Le prix des titres de l'Opération correspondra à la somme de la Valeur d'Entreprise réduite ou augmentée, selon le cas au jour de réalisation de l'Opération, de l’endettement net ***propriétaire*** ou de la trésorerie nette ***propriétaire*** non nécessaire au besoin en fonds de roulement normatif.
Proposed translations (English)
4 -1 proprietary
3 +2 See explanation
3 -1 other than the owner´s (shares)
References
Acquiring insurance agencies

Discussion

Steve Robbie Mar 6, 2020:
BFR I second Wolf's comment - BFR is what we normally call "working capital" in English. You will struggle to find refs in publicly available material, but it's what I learnt as a trainee accountant, and what we all used when I was with Big 4 accounting firms. Financial-sector translation customers also use it themselves.

DAryo's suggestion also makes sense, but for "non-propriétaire" you may wish to consider "unowned". With luck, the surrounding context ought to make the meaning apparent.
Wolf Draeger Mar 5, 2020:
BFR Is probably best translated by "working capital" (without "requirement"). The FR and EN come at it from different angles—whether you have more or less than enough WC vs how much WC you have (whether it's positive or negative)—but the idea is the same.

This is despite the prevalence of "working capital requirement" in many translations, but I think you'll struggle to find solid refs or clear usage in EN source texts.
Daryo Mar 5, 2020:
the distinction between "propriétaire" and "non propriétaire" in this text is the one between

"propriétaire" ="own money/debts" [collecting/paying money in relation to own operations]
and
"non propriétaire" = "client's money/debts" [collecting/paying as agent on behalf of clients]

"Ce genre de société peut avoir dans son bilan de l'argent qui ne fait que passer."
Client's money doesn't seem to be "off-balance sheet". As confirmed here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off-balance-sheet
Leighton Jacobs Mar 4, 2020:
Insurance agent? From your description provided by the client it sounds like the company is acting as an insurance agent holding balances for the insurer from premiums collected?

Either way, as Phil says, it's referring to what actually belongs to the company (in contrast to what it's collecting/holding on behalf of other companies).
tatyana000 (asker) Mar 4, 2020:
More context I asked my client for an explanation and here's what he wrote:
Ce genre de société peut avoir dans son bilan de l'argent qui ne fait que passer.
Par exemple : elle va encaisser pour le compte de l'assureur les primes d'assurances des clients puis les reverser à l'assureur quelques jours après. Si on regarde le bilan entre les 2 dates, la société aura beaucoup d'argent, mais qui ne lui appartient pas car elle devra le reverser à l'assureur.

I'm not sure "proprietary" or even "propriétaire/non propriétaire" conveys all that!
Wolf Draeger Mar 4, 2020:
Non propriétaire = off-balance sheet? Stab in the dark—assuming a link to equity and that "passing through" the balance sheet is cutespeak for not on the balance sheet. On the off-chance this is anywhere near close, there'd be no need to translate propriétaire since that would just be on the balance sheet, where all well-behaved accounting items belong.

In all three instances, (non) propriétaire seems related to working capital, which is current assets minus current liabilities, but in the first instance, we have payables minus receivables, so me confuzzled.

Plus this is insurance, so definitions of working capital won't be straightforward.
philgoddard Mar 4, 2020:
It means it belongs to the company, like proprietary software.
tatyana000 (asker) Mar 4, 2020:
@philgoddard Thanks for adding the definition of BFR. I should've mentioned it in my question. The literal "proprietary" is always the fallback option, but I'd like to know what exactly "propriétaire" means in this context!
philgoddard Mar 4, 2020:
BFR = besoin en fonds de roulement = working capital requirement.
I don't fully understand the French, but I would have thought "proprietary" fits the context.

Proposed translations

-1
2 hrs
Selected

proprietary

A literal translation works fine.

As a nontraditional lender, net working capital has its own proprietary working capital formula.
http://www.excelcapmanagement.com/top-5-uses-working-capital...

Proprietary liabilities exceed assets by $20,335
http://education.ky.gov/districts/FinRept/Documents/FY2018-2...

Peer comment(s):
disagree Daryo : the first ref is irrelevant (proprietary ... formula) the second one relates to the public sector ONLY http://simplestudies.com/accounting-dictionary/letter/P/prop... // you DO need to first understand the ST - no ifs, no buts ..
10 hrs
Thank you so much for your helpful and constructive comments. I learn so much from your daily disagrees, and one day I aspire to omniscience like you.
neutral Steve Robbie : Why is it unhelpful to point out that your links are completely irrelevant to the query?
1 day 15 hrs
I said " helpful". Daryo is easily the most clever person on this site, and I feel humbled by his wisdom.
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4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Thanks!"
+2
58 mins

See explanation

I'm not too hot on insurance but here's my thoughts.

I think the two instances require different solutions:

In the first instance, "Tout élément du BFR non ***propriétaire*** (en transit dans le bilan)" appears to relate to unearned revenue as the company still owes the customer a product or service (hence being recorded as 'in transit').
You could perhaps phrase it something like: "all unearned/deferred revenue effecting working capital (in transit on the balance sheet) [...]"

The second instance, "l’endettement net ***propriétaire***" seems to simply refer to net debt, where "proprietiare" is referring to unceded insurance contracts only (i.e. those that the company has not passed on to another company), which is covered in English simply by net debt. This contrasts with gross debt which would include ceded reinsurance.

In both instances though the "propriétaire" seems to be referring to what is actually owned or rather recorded on the company's balance sheet (as an asset for "propriétaire" and as a liability for "non-propriétaire").

Hope this helps!

Reference:

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/u/unearnedrevenue.asp

https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/042415/why-would-you-look-companys-net-debt-rather-its-gross-debt.asp

Note from asker:
Thank you for this explanation. This makes a lot of sense. My client, however, says it's "proprietary."
Peer comment(s):
agree writeaway : this is why I stay 100% away from B2B insurance
6 hrs
It's a minefield isn't it!
agree Wolf Draeger : I think your "fiduciary" or "custodian" (or "trust"?) from ref comments are good bets.
1 day 2 hrs
Thanks Wolf. I think they're possibilities but perhaps not the most appropriate.
neutral Steve Robbie : The links are very helpful. I suggest that the most obvious translation of non-propriétaire is "clients' " or "unowned" - fiduciary and custodian tend to appear, rightly I think, in scare quotes in the links. N.b. "Gross debt" excludes (owned) CASH.
1 day 16 hrs
Thanks Steve. Yeah, I've only managed to find "fiduciary" in use in government or public accounting and "custodian" hardly at all. "owned debt" sounds like a bit of an oxymoron to me haha but I definitely agree with "clients".
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-1
4 hrs

other than the owner´s (shares)

Peer comment(s):
disagree Daryo : the ST is not about shares
7 hrs
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Reference comments

22 hrs
Reference:

Acquiring insurance agencies

Just one solitary ref, but some useful-looking info about buying insurance agencies, which as Leighton suggested may be the case here.

https://mercercapital.com/assets/Mercer-Capitals-Valuing-Ins...

I think the problem is actually non-propriétaire—find a way to translate that and you can probably leave out propriétaire as that would just relate to normal accounting items.

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 1 day 3 hrs (2020-03-05 18:54:36 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

Reposting Leighton's ref in his comment below because I think it sheds much needed light on the mechanics of insurance accounting (plus Part 2 of that article):
https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2012/05/23/24...
https://www.insurancejournal.com/magazines/mag-features/2012...
Note from asker:
Thank you for this info. This is exactly what I was looking for. My client, however, prefers "proprietary."
Peer comments on this reference comment:
agree Leighton Jacobs : I completely agree about non-propretaire being the issue - I found "custodian" here (https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2012/05/23/24... ) which could be an option? Or even "fiduciary" which is used to contrast 'proprietary' in other uses
3 hrs
Very good ref; I think you're on to something with "fiduciary" (or perhaps even "trust/in trust").
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