Alliance Finance PLC sees itself as an enabler. By facilitating import and export trade it enables business to respond to the shifting demands of its respective markets, encouraging corporate growth and healthy, thriving businesses.

As the international trading environment changes many businesses have found that the financial routes they have traditionally relied upon, such as the high street banks, are increasingly unable to respond to the speed of the global marketplace and their qualifying criteria are frequently less than user-friendly. Financial mores taken for granted only a few years ago now appear outmoded and inadequate, while other alternatives such as factoring and discounting only address post delivery cash flow and do nothing at all to enable the initial purchase.

Trade finance is the one option that provides an alternative to businesses who are faced with the problem of having to reject business or who are unable to take advantage of opportunities because of inadequate financial resource.

Alliance Finance PLC was born in 1998 with the professed aim of a addressing this requirement. It has a proactive management team and the backing of the Li and Fung world wide business empire which not only has a minority equity shareholding in the company but is also a valuable partner for sourcing deals, and service suppliers such as freight forwarding and insurance.

The two executive directors, Chairman and Managing Director, Bernadine Calleja and the Chief Operating Officer and Commercial Director, Maurice Ezekiel have fostered relationships with freight forwarders, their investors and with their customers; they both bring to Alliance a formidable background in financial control and a wealth of experience in trade finance.

The Alliance team is growing fast and there is an unmistakable buzz when you sit among them. The working environment leaves a lasting impression of dedicated professionalism on clients; one which they know will ensure that their mutual business interests are protected and developed properly.

Calleja and Ezekiel are both quick to pay tribute to the whole team and they are adamant that it is the skill set and the resulting structure within Alliance that has set it on course for continued growth. The Commercial, Sales and Operations Departments have each demonstrated a unique blend of sound financial control and entrepreneurial flair, something they had both found distinctly thin on the ground in the traditional world of trade finance.

Another facet that distinguishes Alliance Finance PLC from the crowd is that it wants to do business and will try every way to make a proposal stack. There is no insistence on embracing a narrow range of industry sectors either, though clearly some are far more suitable for trade finance facilities than others. Alliance is also quick to point out to clients opportunities which it has uncovered.

Alliance's portfolio centres around two key products: Alliance Purchase Finance (APF), which can work for clients who have strong balance sheets and can be credit insured by Alliance, and Alliance Invoice Finance (AIF) for financing invoices on post delivery of goods to the client’s customers. The two can also be combined for those clients who are not as financially strong or are a start up company to produce an effective and flexible financial tool.

Trade Finance is an enabling innovation providing short term finance for companies finding that the traditional means of credits and loans are not keeping pace with the changing nature of international trade.

It is an integral part of the future of global trade.

Jason Quinn - Head of Sales. Alliance Finance PLC, 8 Wimpole Street, London, W1M 8LA. Tel: 020 7307 2900, Fax: 020 7307 2905.