In 2020, I was contacted by the Finance Director of a well-established firm operating in the chemical sector in UK. Their turnover was approximately £18m per year and they had a new business opportunity to increase their trade with a new client in Chile.
Up to that point, the business with their South American client had been limited to £5,000 per year, based on proforma invoicing. Now they had to sign a 2 year contract worth £7 million per year!
They didn’t know this company that well, they were unsure whether to sign such a big deal with someone on the other side of the world. The new contract demanded “open credit terms”: if the debt became overdue how would they collect the monies owed?
However, the projected margins were quite good, so they decided to contact Allianz Trade, with the intention of covering just the invoices for that contract.
The company was very traditional, family run, and the MD had many years’ experience in his industry. We engaged in the conversation and I promised we would provide more information on their new client.
Allianz Trade got in touch with the Risk Officer at Allianz Trade in South America - we operate everywhere and can leverage our expertise pretty much in every country in the world. After 5 weeks of business intelligence work, we got the green light!
The UK company now knew that they could safely do business with their Chilean clients and were covered up to £1.5m by Allianz Trade in case something went wrong.
They were so pleased with the service and the expertise of Allianz Trade, that they decided to cover their full turnover, aware of the exposure they had with other clients as well.
