Fintech / Capital Efficiency Consulting
Mauri Consulting is an European consulting practice headed by Enrico Mauri, an expert in securitisation, factoring and fintech.
Mr Mauri is a former investment banker with professional experience at Credit Suisse, ING, Salomon Brothers and KPMG Consulting. Most recently, he was Head of Securitisation at CrossLend, a fintech based in Berlin.
Mr Mauri has worked and lived in 5 European countries (Germany, Italy, Belgium, France and the UK) and speaks 5 European languages (Italian, English, French, German and Spanish).
Mission
Mauri Consulting advises Corporates and SMEs on the implementation of Off-balance Sheet Financing techniques: factoring, securitisation, sale and lease back, and project financing.
Working Capital
Balance sheet financing - Trade receivables represent 20-40% of SMEs' balance sheets and are usually “Balance Sheet Financed” via a mixture of payables, debt and equity. Disadvantages of Balance Sheet Financing are:
(a) customers' credit risk is retained,
(b) equity is needed to support the corporate debt, and
(c) company's flexibility is impacted, since debt and equity are limited resources.
Off-balance sheet financing - These techniques include "factoring" which consists in selling trade receivables to a factoring company or bank, and "securitisation" which consists in selling the trade receivables to a specially dedicated entity ("SPV"). Benefits of these transactions are:
(a) customers' credit risk is transferred to third-parties,
(b) no equity is needed since the receivables are sold (and operating with 20-40% less equity improves proportionally the ROE, assuming an unchanged net profit), and
(c) company's flexibility is improved since the net debt is reduced.
In our view, all industrial companies that own "financial assets" in the form of trade receivables, tax receivables, and so on, "should stop acting as banks" by granting extended payment terms and by holding the resulting financial assets in their balance sheets until their maturity. Instead, they should sell these assets to financial investors that have balance sheets designed to hold such financial assets. To summarise: financial assets = financial investors.
Moreover, if implemented well, the above transactions can help the company to become "Cash Generative" as opposed to "Cash Consuming" as is inevitably the case when On-balanche Financing is implemented.
Fixed Investments
Corporates should consider to execute "sale and lease-back transactions" of their real estate assets, and to use "project financing techniques" to finance the construction and/or the operations of long-term revenue-generating assets, such as renewable energy plants and data centers, especially when these meet the "QII" requirements (see below).
In our view, corporates will find more capital-efficient and profitable to act as tenants of, or service providers to, such plants (hence adopting a "Capital-light Strategy", frequently seen in the accomodation industry), and to have third-parties acting as funders and owners of these assets. To summarise: fixed investments = financial investors
Services to Corporates/SMEs
Financial strategy
Assistance in the definition of the most suitable financing strategy.
Quantification of the benefits of using factoring or securitisation.
Factoring
Assistance in the collection of all information required by funders to provide factoring. The info package consists of KYC and AML information, corporate documents, external credit ratings of the selling company and the debtors, and historical performance of the trade receivables.
Submission of the information package to various funders to achieve the best conditions in the shortest period.
Comparison of the offers received from funders: each proposal contains different legal conditions and different economics terms, for example fees based on different criteria.
Assistance in the negotiation with funders, especially with reference to the economic terms.
Securitisation
Assistance in the design and structuring of securitisation transactions.
Assistance in the collection of all information required to structure the securitisation transaction. The info package also includes data on the historical performance of the receivables.
Submission of the information package to various investment banks/service providers to achieve the best conditions in the shortest period.
Comparison of the offers received.
Assistance in the negotiation with funders, especially with reference to the economic terms.
Financial forecasting of the cash flow of the securitisation vehicle.
Qualified Infrastructure Investments (QII)
Long-term assets, such photovoltaic plants, hydroelectric plants, motorways, data centers, etc., generate revenues over a long period of time. Such assets are particularly attractive to long-term regulated investors such as insurance companies for two reasons: (a) perfect matching with their long-term liabilities and (b) benefit of the Solvency II regulation which allows low capital requirements for the investments meeting specific criteria ("Qualified Infrastructure Investments" or "QIIs").
Assessment of whether the specific asset falls into the QII definition.
Identification of potential investors.
Assistance in transaction structuring, which frequently consists in a securitisation.
Services to Service Providers
Assistance in helping Service Providers/Fintechs in providing the services above to SMEs.
Assistance in helping Service Providers/Fintechs in being financed by institutional investors, especially with regards to trade receivables.
Services to Institutional Investors
Assistance in identifying European Fintechs or Factoring companies suitable to being financed by institutional investors.
Contact details
Responsibility / Impressum
Enrico Mauri, Oderberger Str. 46, 10435 Berlin, Germany. VAT number: DE341413849