CSI Field Services has been extremely active helping asset based lenders and purchase order financing firms, as well as Factors making advances against Inventory, take on new opportunities, where certification and/or special monitoring were needed to approve the credit facilities.
PO/Inventory Lending - $5MM P.O. line for a Teak Furniture Importer - We are providing full inventory certification to a purchase order financing company. The Client's existing lender would not provide the advances necessary to bring in the furniture from Asia, despite matching sales orders from solid retailers. CSI segregates the incoming P.O. Finance inventory from other product liened by the existing lender, matches incoming product to purchase orders and releases outgoing shipments only to the pre-approved retail sales orders. The Client is pleased to have the product in its own warehouse, where it can carefully inspect and re-pack, and the finance company has a new credit with inventory reliance and high advance rates, done safely, as CSI has contractual responsibility for the inventory. We have also installed the service for a $2MM rug importer line, a $3MM line for a gift products importer and a $1.5MM apparel company facility.
AgriBusiness (supplier liens) - $25MM LOC - Vegetable Packer. This fall we helped an asset based lender provide a line to an undercapitalized Midwest vegetable packer and canner. The borrowing base is 80% inventory after harvest, with the presence of grower payables, so the ABL firm asked us to provide ongoing daily inventory certificates that reflect all incoming and outgoing movements. We track each truckload that crosses the scales as a grower payable, reserving from the borrowing base until paid. Usage of raw product and production are reported daily. Our reports reflect canned product by growing season, so that older inventory is ineligible. The ABL firm had little experience in agribusiness and was not used to the need for intensive inventory monitoring, but now has a substantial "priced right" credit, with risk of loss mitigated by CSI services.
Jewelery Borrower - $3MM ABL to jewelry manufacturer. We're certifying both inventory and A/R, dealing with incoming "memo" stones, tracking stone and metal value in finished items, while working with many strange dating terms and return privileges.
International Finance - On the cross-border lending front, we completed a pre-loan survey on A/R and inventory with locations in France, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands. We'll work with our European affiliate to provide a global borrowing base certificate weekly to the major U.S. asset based lender. George Thorson did the survey, and asked what he saw on his whirlwind European tour, he stated "freeways, industrial parks, warehouses and accounting offices, same stuff in a different time zone".
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