The incorporation of a company called Film Finances Ltd in London in March 1950 seems to have passed unnoticed in the trade press at the time. This might be because the trade was preoccupied with other matters: the exhibitors’ campaign to reduce Entertainment Tax and complaints from independent producers of unfair treatment by the National Film Finance Corporation. It might also be because Film Finances was to be a company that would operate very much behind the scenes rather than in the limelight. Its business was not making films or even investing in film production but rather the provision of guarantees of completion. A guarantee of completion was necessary for producers to be able to secure the ‘front money’ loans for their films. It provided security in the form of a guarantee to investors and lenders that in the event of it not being possible to complete a film within the agreed budget, the film would be delivered on schedule without them being called upon to advance further monies beyond the amount originally agreed. While the larger production groups could afford to absorb overcosts on the films they produced themselves, the new post-war landscape of independent production – in particular the proliferation of small production companies with only nominal capital who were dependent on bank loans secured against distribution guarantees – created the conditions for the emergence of specialist completion guarantors. Panton Film Guarantees, incorporated in January 1950, was the first such company, though details are sketchy and it does not seem to have remained in business for very long.