Financing Growth
for Entrepreneurs

 

 

Fast Growth in Outdoor:

Faced with order increases of nearly 100% annually, the rapidly growing producer of casual outdoor apparel needed help in boosting its weak equity position and marginal retained earnings.

Gateway was able to open letters of credit to the company’s Asian suppliers and was repaid by the client’s accounts receivable lender. Using Gateway’s resources as part of its financing structure, the company grew over 300% within four years, becoming a leader in its marketing segment.

 

Alternative Start-Up

Gateway Trade Finance was approached by company principals with a start-up operation. While the company was new, the management was very experienced. The company had several million dollars in orders from nationally known retailers of high-fashion alternative footwear. The company had an accounts receivable financing agreement with a major factor.

Gateway created a facility to open letters of credit to suppliers in Europe, South America and Asia. Footwear was stored in a third-party warehouse until shipped to final customers. The factor advanced funds against accounts receivable to repay Gateway and the client company was able to grow from zero to $10 million in sales in just its first year.

International Shoe Expert

Gateway was approached by an accomplished footwear executive who had an impressive track record, in various capacities, for well-known casual footwear brands. He had obtained a license to produce footwear internationally from a highly successful European casual apparel brand.

The principal had recruited an impressive management team and established a variety of international distributors. The company had an accounts receivable factoring arrangement in place with a nationally known lender.

Gateway Trade Finance provided the letters of credit to land shoes in North America to fulfill solid orders from specialty retailers. The company was able to substantially increase US sales without obtaining additional equity financing.

Skateshoe Pros

Two former executives from an internationally known maker of athletic footwear approached Gateway to provide letters of credit in order to import casual foot- wear.

Gateway provided the letters of credit, shoes were shipped to specialty shops in the casual and surf market and Gateway collected the accounts receivable.

The executives were able to base their business on nothing more than a shoestring because of the impressive number of customer orders.

Warm and Fuzzy Importer

An experienced importer of shearling footwear products approached Gateway after it had obtained a huge holiday order from a national US retailer.

Because an accounts receivable finance arrangement with a regional factoring company was already in place, Gateway was able to quickly provide Letters of Credit to a large Chinese supplier. The supplier was then able to ship product to the US just in time for holiday deliveries. Gateway was then repaid by factoring advances against accounts receivable.