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Corporate strategy is defined by the competitive advantage a company has in its market and by how that advantage will be sustained into the future. Knowing your competitive advantage is a key to your success. Maintaining that advantage and communicating it clearly to the market (and your staff) will result in business growth and profitability.

Your competitive advantage will allow you to lock in a greater gross margin and secure profitability for the long term. Maintaining your competitive advantage requires a lot of discipline. We collaborate with you to develop a clear view of what the building blocks of your competitive advantage are and how to maintain and improve them. This will give your strategy credibility to your suppliers, clients and your management and employees.

Together, we define your corporate strategy which then forms the basis of your communication with internal and external stakeholders such as banks. It is also the foundation of your plans for future development and growth.

With your finance strategy and financing needs defined, we will assist you raising the appropriate credit facilities or other debt instruments. We will enable you to drive the process and define the terms and conditions of the debt you are raising, empowering you to be in control of your own destiny.

Vollebregt Advisory acts as board member or advisor to the board of trading companies or trade finance funds. We understand the dynamics of trading companies, their commodity markets and some of the key drivers for their success. Our added value is typically in areas of corporate strategy, finance strategy, governance, risk management, compliance and ESG.

Trading platforms or trade finance platforms have specific structuring requirements for their finance strategy as they go through different growth phases. The assets are more uniform and sometimes digitized. This allows these platforms to migrate their financing from bilateral bank lines to structured debt solutions, such as securitizations or institutional funding structures.

Trading companies prefer to operate lean and mean. As a result, their key functions are often thinly staffed with seasoned professionals that get the job done. As a company grows, the need arises to open up to new lenders and introduce new financing structures and conditions. This often puts new demands on a CFO and Treasury team. We can fulfill an interim role in key financial functions to make sure that the company can capture opportunities and transition at pace. Redesigning responsibilities and processes as well as (re)negotiating existing and new financing structures and debt instruments, with the appropriate terms and conditions whilst meeting lender requirements, is key to developing a business.

When there’s a need to restructure, we can be your partner in returning the company to a strong and stable footing. We will make an assessment of the current situation and together we will make a plan to restructure financing arrangements (structure, covenants), team structure, policies, processes and procedures. This will help you to again become a stable and profitable company that is trusted and supported by suppliers, clients, staff, lenders and other stakeholders. In a financial distress situation we would assist you in negotiating a remediation plan, streamlining information provided to lenders and negotiating with a coordinating/steering committee.

The commodity trade business involves high value transactions that are often settled on the basis of an exchange of simple shipping documents and invoices. In recent years, there have been numerous fraud cases. Victims of fraud, whether banks, insurance companies or other trading companies, have had to protect themselves or seek recovery of claims and other amounts owed.

In such cases the claimant or defendant (or their legal counsel) will seek expert advice regarding the customs in trade and trade finance and their particular case. We regularly work as an expert witness for parties in a dispute or litigation. We provide verbal or written expert opinions to our client and client’s counsel and are often involved from start to finish in a legal case. This may involve extensive cross examination during court hearings.

We acted as expert witness for ED&F Man Capital Markets (“ED&F”) and its solicitors Clyde & Co in 2021 in a case against various defendants concerning nickel warehouse receipts. The case, which involved extensive cross examination of the parties’ experts, came to the High Court in London in February 2022 which found in favour of ED&F and awarded the full damages of $284 million. This ruling was later upheld in the Court of Appeal.

We share our know-how through half day or full day lectures and workshops. We also offer 1-on-1 training of commodity trading executives and staff related to all aspects of commodity finance. Whatever your needs are, we can tailor a solution that meets your requirements in terms of complexity, duration, use of case material, etc.

We act as a moderator in strategy meetings and other executive team meetings. Our role is typically to make sure that all participants feel empowered to provide their input. If needed, we can also assist in preparing certain topics.