RE: leasing leverage21 Mar 2020 11:28
@maxwellsmart -IMO, the best structure is a leasing vendor finance arrangement. Imagine U is the end user, B is BMN/BE, and L is the leasing company.
B sells electrolyte to U for cash and invoices U the end user, gets paid and makes the profit. B also sells the leasing product to U and passes the leasing sale to L for credit underwriting, documents, tax treatment, drawdown and rental management. U decides to take up the lease finance and sells the electrolyte to L who then own the electrolyte and rent it back to U. L will agree an exposure limit for all lease exposure to B clients. L will come up with the cash, there will be an agreed profit split on the leasing book, L will deal with delinquent rentals and losses, end of term unwind or renewal, and credit management of individual users. there can be many variations on the theme such as when U is someone like redt and the need for electrolyte is for a redt client then the client would sell to redt who then sells to L, and the sub user then pays rental to L. L can be a JV between L and B or can be solely owned by L but with JV agreement for profits/losses etc. The benefit to B of such a structure is L provide great expertise and specialist functions and B don't need to come up with the cash, as they would if on balance sheet finance was provided. That said, any deal B do on own balance sheet can be novated to the L entity after the fact if everyone agrees so deals could be done now and moved later. B will be keen to tie up as many income streams as they can as part of their vertical strategy but using a noted leasing company is important as international leasing is specialist stuff, not to be done IMO by a mining company. There is no reason why the leasing company could not use a trading name of say bushveld vanadium finance.