iF October DIGITAL September-October 2020 | Page 48

• Expanded borrowing capacity:
EXIM-insured foreign accounts
receivable can be assigned to a
lender, improving a company’s liquidity
and easing cash flow constraints.
• Access to vital export funding:
EXIM provides a 90 percent loan
guarantee that encourages lenders
to provide credit to manufacturers.
The funds can be used to fulfill
sales orders as well as cover labor
and overhead costs. EXIM also can
help obtain standby letters of credit
to be used as performance or bid
bonds.
• Term financing: EXIM guarantees
financing to creditworthy foreign
buyers for purchases of U.S. capital
goods and services. With this support,
the U.S. companies get paid
in full upon shipment. Meanwhile,
foreign buyers have better access to
lender loans, typically with lower
interest rates and longer repayment
terms.
48 iF Magazine |September-October 2020
EXIM Success Story
Competitive Engineering Inc. (CEI)
of Tucson, Arizona, has leveraged
EXIM’s working capital loan guarantee
to expand its international sales
while sustaining local jobs and creating
additional ones.
A small business of 73 employees,
CEI manufactures precision components
for a variety of customers,
particularly in the aerospace and data-storage
industries. When the company
needed to improve cash flow
to support its growing export business
in 2005, CEI turned to EXIM’s
working capital loan guarantee to
find a lender that would include foreign
accounts receivable as collateral
in its borrowing base.
CEI uses the EXIM-guaranteed
working capital to cover inventory
and purchase of materials while
maintaining its cash flow while
awaiting payment of foreign accounts
receivable. This capacity has enabled
the company to remain competitive
and sustain exports to major buyers
in Mexico and the Philippines.
Over the past five years, EXIM has
assisted nearly $55 million of CEI’s
exports, which account for approximately
40 percent of the company’s
revenues. As a result, CEI has been
able to remain competitive and increase
revenue — leading to the creation
of an additional 10 jobs in the
past two years.
“EXIM’s support has been critical to
CEI’s continued success,” said CEI
President Don Martin, who founded
the company with his wife, Charlotte,
in 1987. “Exports constitute a significant
portion of our business, and we
need our foreign accounts receivable
to be included as collateral. EXIM’s
program has given us access to the
working capital we need to sustain
our exports and the jobs of our hardworking
employees.”
To learn more about what EXIM can
do for you, set up a free consultation
at grow.exim.gov/if_sept_2020.
James Burrows, Senior Vice President,
EXIM Office of Small Business
Mr. Burrows has more than 30 years of professional
experience in both the public and
private sectors of the U.S. financial services
industry, including commercial banking, retail
banking, and investment banking. Burrows
joined EXIM as the Vice President of Small
Business in October 2012 and was promoted
to the Senior Vice President in 2013. Burrows
has also held management positions at both
large and regional commercial banks.