The peck of our bunch (Published June 2007)
We detected just a touch of urgency in the voice of Dick Clark
when he called to introduce Chris Cantrill and his chicken
business, www.vision-foods.com.
I note two types of clients for our trade finance, the finance
planners, and the late starters who assume that finance will all fall
into place. In some ways we prefer the latter. We can make things
happen quickly and it is often easier to put a facility together when
the customers
and the suppliers
are ready to go, and
just the transaction
finance needs to be
arranged.
But in our 15
years I have never
previously had the
situation when our
client had such
credibility that he
could persuade the
supplier to put
nearly $300,000 of
goods on the water
without clarity on how they were to get paid. The ship had been going
for a week before we met to discuss. Dick said he thought that we
had the free range of skill, funds and speed needed to sort this out
without getting ruffled.
"Dick said he thought that we
had the free range of skill, funds and speed needed to sort this out
without getting ruffled."
Chris had five containers of frozen chicken breast fillets,
heading from Brazil to Germany. Just a few problems to sort out:
- this is food. It is hugely regulated but we keep abreast of
the rules;
- no acceptable documentary process for payment had been
agreed; and
- the health certificates for EU import were not fully EU
compliant
But no headless chicken act from us! Frances Walsh, the peck of
our bunch, plucked up courage and took control
in multiple languages and time zones to try to sort
it out whilst the ship was in transit on a journey
of 17 days. Dick's time, skills and contacts greatly
assisted.
Together they arranged for the contracts to be
revised and documents to be changed and sent to our
bankers; we paid for the documents and sent them to
the customer's bankers for acceptance and payment
before the goods were released to the customer. This
was a huge amount of organisation in a short period;
Frances then went home to roost, with a large
feather in her cap. Thank you Frances.
Before the first transaction was completed we
learned the next containers were winging their way
towards Germany. That time all went smoothly.
The product appears to be flying off the shelf and we hope to be
funding 20 containers or more each month.
Next step? We are making introductions in the hope that we
can find other products for Chris's customer and other customers
for his many food products.
That is what the Fairfax Food Group
is all about.
Written by David Ross Director
Download
the Article 'The peck of our bunch' at www.fairfaxgerrard.co.uk/docs/BusMon 0607 The peck of our bunch.pdf
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