Bibby Financial Services (BFS), the UK’s largest independent invoice finance provider, has announced a £5.5 million Invoice Discounting package for corrugated cardboard manufacturer, CorrBoard UK Ltd.
Based in Scunthorpe, the £30m turnover business manufactures a range of corrugated fibreboard sheet grades that are used by its partners to manufacture packaging and displays.
The consortium company is owned by seven similarly aligned packaging businesses and their operational partner, US based Corrugated Synergies International. It was first conceived in October 2013 and began manufacturing in July 2014. Two years on, the venture has gone from strength-to-strength augmenting the investors own individual businesses.
To help sustain its growth and to improve its working capital position the group recently sought to increase CorrBoard UK’s funding arrangement. It was at this point, the business turned to BFS’ Corporate Finance team who structured a £5.5m Invoice Discounting package, doubling CorrBoard’s previous funding availability.
Nick Kirby, consortium member and Chairman of CorrBoard said: “Since bringing the business to life two years ago, our growth has been to plan, but earlier this year we recognised that to meet further potential in our business, additional funding was needed from a more innovative and flexible provider.”
“We needed a corporate financier that could offer both experience and flexibility in structuring a package that works for us, both now and in the future, and this is why we chose Bibby Financial Services.”
“We have worked very closely with the team at BFS and we now have an Invoice Discounting facility in place that will be flexible to our needs as the business itself grows.”
At its facility in Scunthorpe, CorrBoard has a team of 80 producing its range of products. With a new, modern state-of-the-art corrugating facility, the business has the capability to manufacture well in excess of three million square metres of product each week; a significant proportion of the UK sheet market.
Mr Kirby continued: “For members of the consortium, CorrBoard is a strategically innovative venture that helps our businesses operate more efficiently and with greater control. In the past we would often be under pressure to turn around orders for our customers in two to three days but we would have to wait seven to eight days for our suppliers. With CorrBoard we have been able to cut this down to 24-48 hours, providing a fast and reliable supply into the UK market.
“Having finance in place that matches the flexibility we’ve worked hard to achieve is a powerful position to be in, and it helps us to take advantage of opportunities that otherwise would be tough to convert into orders.”
Commenting on the funding partnership, Andrew Darling, Corporate Manager at BFS said: “CorrBoard UK is a fantastic business with a unique management structure. Configuring an Invoice Discount package of this nature is extremely complex so combining our experience and knowledge of the sector with our relationship-based approach was crucial.
“There were a number of challenges that we had to overcome but the key to making this deal successful was getting under the bonnet of the business and understanding how both it and the consortium work. One particular area that we accommodated was increasing the threshold on the sales ledger that any one of the consortium could make up at any one time.
“I’m delighted we were able to find a positive solution, enabling us to support such a fantastic business.”
The full list of consortium owners includes; Beaucrest Packaging Solutions Ltd, Dairi-Pak Ltd, Fencor Packaging Group Limited, GWP Packaging, Garthwest Ltd, Mclaren Packaging Ltd, Swanline Print Ltd and Corrugated Synergies International LLC.