Export finance advisory
Supporting the trade in capital goods and services by providing export financing has come a long way. It got traction during the Great Depression to boost the economies of exporting and importing countries.
The complexity of the requirements set by governments, banks and export credit agencies (ECAs) often stand in the way of exporters and importers benefitting from the products offered by these institutions.
Export financing is financing the purchase of exports/imports
of capital goods from countries supported by ECAs.
INSTITUTIONS INVOLVED
ECA’s are institutions that provide credit insurance on behalf of their government, for instance Atradius Dutch State Business and Euhler Hermes.
This enables banks to accept a higher corporate credit risk, larger debt quantum and financing with longer tenors.
PARTIES / PEOPLE INVOLVED
In each project you have the exporter(s), an importer and often suppliers from other countries.
In the projects we are involved, we always work with exporters from the Netherlands and Germany.
The importers are located all over the world, as long as they are in a country that is eligible for export finance backed by the ECA’s.
FINANCIAL EXPLANATION
The financing is based on the corporate or sovereign risk of the importer of the capital goods and/or its guarantor.
The basis for financing is in general 80-85% of the sales price (minimum content of exporter from exporting country is required).
The financing structure can match the delivery period and a repayment period in line with the economic lifetime of the capital goods.
* Capital goods we often look at include greenhouses, vessels, factories, bridges, hospitals, emergency response vehicles, windfarms and any parts of such facilities.
For you, we will bear the burden of arranging export credit in our preferred sectors, amongst others:
– Connecting the project to Dutch and/ or German exporters
– Designing the preferred (export) finance structure and integrating it into the project contracts
– Applying for export credit insurance and submitting all relevant documents
– Preparing a corporate presentation to request financing from the relevant financers
– Approaching the relevant financers to fund the export of the capital goods and/ or services
– Looking for financing for the required down payment
– Responding to any requests for information from the relevant financers/ECA
– Advising on the costs and timelines of all institutions involved
– Getting the deal closed and advising on any post compliance requirements
If desired, we work together with our alliances in raising the commercial financing or equity to finance the required down payment for an export finance and/ or to obtain the required working capital for a project.
Compliance advisory
The global financial services industry is subject to increasing scrutiny and oversight, with the cost of making mistakes becoming higher both financially and reputation-wise.
Some of these rules do not only apply to the financial institutions, but also to the exporters and importers that apply for financing from such financial institutions.
“New” initiatives, such as, laws against anti-money laundering (AML), anti-terrorism financing (ATF), international sanctions, anti-bribery & corruption laws, anti-child labour legislation impact the exporters and importers, since they need to provide comfort to the financial institutions involved in their projects that such laws are complied with.
By keeping on top of these regulations, exporters and importers retain their competitive advantage in an everchanging landscape.
For you, we will bear the burden of facilitating your compliance by, amongst others:
– Giving specific compliance advice
– Designing your compliance infrastructure, policies and procedures
– Doing thematic compliance reviews
– Doing annual and ongoing reviews of compliance arrangements, systems and controls
– Arranging regulatory audits, pre-enforcement, and supervisory reviews
– Supporting with on-site regulator visits, examinations and enforcement investigations
– Designing cybersecurity policies, procedures and assessments
– Advising on preparing for regulatory changes
– Employee training on regulatory matters
Interim management
Atal will rapidly provide you with one of our experienced ‘hands-on’ consultants for a defined period of time to assist in setting up projects financed by export finance or to assist in implementing our compliance advice or frameworks. Our executives will advise you and help you define what you want to achieve and why, and then help you deliver the changes.
Atal is actively involved throughout the project to ensure that our clients’ and our interim managers’ goals are aligned and that the expected business benefits are being delivered.
