A Small drinks importer:
The customer was a relatively tiny business, drop shipping energy drinks imported from eastern Europe to a base of independent retail clients around London.
The business was profitable - in a small way, but cash was continuously re-invested in the next order.
Through networking and hard work the customer saw 2 big opportunities at once - one in to a substantial vending machine operator the other a significant order with a discount retailer.
With gross margins of 12%, no personal assets and no cash the customer literally had nowhere to turn.
We were able to put in place a profit share deal to help this business to the next level.
A Precision engineer:
Established 3 ears, this 2-man partnership had achieved moderate success before hitting a ceiling. To grow required investment & personal commitment, or they could continue as they were - enjoying the income but staying static.
the owners could not agree, so eventually decided on an amicable split.
Using their elderly but solid assets we were able to fund the buyout of the less ambitious partner so the remaining owner could take on a new (minority) partner and take the business to the next level.
A Confectionery manufacturer:
Having acted as an import agent for several years the client saw a huge opportunity to manufacture their own line of goods to both existing UK contacts and a new overseas client bases.
As agents, they operated successfully (with both good and bad years) but had a very small capital base to secure the significant investment in both fixed assets and working capital to develop new markets.
Using a mix of hire purchase, unsecured loan and short term funding we were able to assist this very large step to the next level.
A New product in child play:
In a case worthy of Dragon's Den, the customer had invested their life savings in developing and marketing their education/play product for children.
3 years had brought many accolades but virtually nothing in the way of sales. Investors had expressed interest but no satisfactory deal had been struck.
when the breakthrough order came the customer had a quandary, enter into a hasty equity agreement (never a wise idea), sell their rights or do a profit share.
In the end none of these happened - we were able to assist with a mix of trade finance and confidential invoice discounting,
which helped the customer from obscurity to real new heights!
And finally - the one we nearly couldn't do..
The customer was an established business - family-owned, supplying and installing CCTV to commercial clients.
Part of their journey to the next level involved a £40K spend on premise works and cloud-based computing. It looked relatively easy but the circumstances were determined to fight us all the way:
- Despite being profitable, the business was run very much for its owners, who left very little capital in the business.
- The spend had absolutely no hard costs, which ruled out HP and leasing.
- They had a recent small crowd-funded loan - too soon for a top up.
- The customer was 100% resistant to any type of invoice finance. Full stop!
With a significant - and not terribly well managed - debtor book, we pursued the point on invoice finance point - undisclosed? Selective debtors? All drew a flat resistance.
Nearly defeated I put one other option to them. Using our collections and commercial, we would step in and sort out their debtors acting as employees, bringing much needed money of their own into the business. We would also put in place a process to keep things working for them.
It took 4 days of our time, with monthly follow ups (estimated 6 months) to make this work.
Not only did the customer go to the next level, so did we! From this experiment was born CashFlow Consultants - enabling businesses to go to the next level without borrowing!
