GE Commercial Finance has extended a five-year, non-recourse trade
receivables factoring facility with a credit line of EUR 800m to KME
Group S.p.A. GE will purchase and manage KME's receivables across
Europe. The deal is GE's largest pan-European factoring transaction.
"KME will have a single system across five countries, with
standardized credit and collection processes, significantly reducing
complexity across the business. KME will thus benefit from greater
clarity and predictability in its finances, and be able to focus fully
on growth," said Thierry Willieme, Managing Director of Factofrance,
the French factoring unit of GE Commercial Finance, which is managing
the facility.
KME Group S.p.A., formerly "Societa Metallurgica Italiana," is one
of the world's largest producers of copper and copper-alloy semi
finished products and manufactures a vast array of specialty high-tech
products. It has 15 plants in Italy, Germany, France, Spain and China;
6,847 employees and two research centres. It manufactures in excess of
628,000 tons of products a year and had consolidated revenues of EUR
2.176bn in 2005. Following a recent capital increase, this deal will
further improve the Group's financial and working capital structure.
"This comprehensive facility will help KME manage its working
capital volatility and reduce the impact of fluctuations in the price
of its raw materials, copper and alloy, while at the same time
achieving significant saving in terms of financial expense,
quantifiable in the range of a few million euro on a yearly basis,"
commented Vincenzo Cannatelli, CEO of KME Group.
With market leading factoring businesses in both France and
Germany, GE Commercial Finance was ideally placed to provide KME with
a true one stop, pan-European solution it needed. "GE's solid global
risk management expertise and robust due diligence processes meant it
was able to commit to a five-year deal, rather than the two-year
standard deal common across the industry," said Mogens Tolbod,
Commercial Director at GE Commercial Finance.
Historically, factoring has been used predominantly by small and
medium enterprises, particularly those experiencing rapid growth, with
the majority of factoring programs focused on a single domestic
market. The KME facility demonstrates that factoring is increasingly
seen as a useful tool for large, multinational corporations as well.
GE's size and global reach gives its customers a significant benefit
in structuring such cross-border deals.
ABOUT GE COMMERCIAL FINANCE
GE Commercial Finance, which offers businesses around the globe an
array of financial products and services, has assets of over $206
billion and is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut.
General Electric (NYSE: GE) is Imagination at Work - a diversified
technology, media and financial services company focused on solving
some of the world's toughest problems. GE serves customer in more than
100 countries and employs more than 300,000 people worldwide. For more
information, visit ge.com.
