HOMEPAGE NEWS INSPIRING STORIES
11 Apr 23

1. What does entrepreneurship mean to you?
The concept of entrepreneurship for Corbari & International Trade Partners is a "new proactive cultural approach" to make itself available to entrepreneurs by providing consulting services to complement what is already offered by traditional stakeholders (banks, accountants, commercial risk insurers, etc.).
Corbari & International Trade Partners wants to introduce a concept of alternative finance, which combines the already present solutions and applies them innovatively.
Any banker tends to offer products and services of their bank, but there are multiple solutions in the market, often more effective and at least complementary.
Entrepreneurship also means getting out of the "comfort zone"! During Covid, I developed the conviction that it was humanly valuable to open to entrepreneurs to meet their needs and requirements, which are often unmet daily.
When the business idea was born, strengthened by the experience gained as Head of Coordination of the International Department of Credit Agricole Italia (formerly Capiparma), I began to forge strong partnerships with the excellence of international finance, selecting the best among the different areas of intervention and needs.
2. ELITE company has an important order with a foreign client, which often does not have the immediate financial availability. How to engage Corbari & International Trade Partners?
Faced with such a question, I would pose the following question: "Besides the Sace policy or the bank letter of credit, have you investigated other alternatives?" In almost all cases, the answer will be negative.
Having worked for 25 years in international banks, I have grasped one certainty: our Italian companies often have significant sales potential that they cannot materialize due to the absence of evolved financial instruments in the client's target countries.
Corbari & International Trade Partners coordinates a network of insurance brokers, international traders, and forfaiting companies capable of seeking tailored solutions for "life's work orders." If clients on traditional channels cannot find a solution, they often give up the sale and an essential share of high-margin revenue.
In specific sectors, renting/operating rentals could also be a solution: the ELITE customer does not sell directly to the customer but to an operating rental company, which collects rental fees from the customer (the buyer), whether Italian or foreign.

3. What are the values that distinguish Corbari & International Trade Partners?
The values that characterize the company are highly linked to transparency in relationships, professional ethics with which mandates are carried out, and proactivity; the latter is understood as energy to be expended to support the efforts, often unheeded, of Italian companies of medium-small size. The company also intimately aspires to a social mission: the more we can offer innovative solutions to finance international orders that would perhaps have been lost by resorting to traditional channels, the more we can strengthen the Italian Country System with all the impacts, including employment, that this opportunity can determine.
There are many situations where scouting and initial verification of these "alternative finance" solutions are conducted without applying expenses. It is an initial phase of a mutual acquaintance to "open a new path", as in mountain trails.
4. What are the times when companies benefit most from your support? And what are the most common resistances and difficulties you encounter?
The most classic moment is when the company's sales department requests a supply from a foreign counterpart (in machinery, Italian technology is considered top in all international markets). Still, concretely, the potential client, often from emerging markets, needs help financing the same supply.
The opportunity for Corbari & International Trade Partners is to meticulously research all solutions and identify the correct and suitable tools that can support the client and bring liquidity.
For example, can we use local insurance policies to cover the risk to the Italian exporter and grant a deferred payment to the buyer, helping its financial position? Could that technology be attractive to a private equity fund active in the local market that could capitalize on the company known to our Italian client?Are there international development banks that might be interested in financing projects in our client's supply chain?
Another classic example referring to the second question: clients often tell us, "I've always done in this way", and "No one has ever told me that."
A niche knows extra-banking solutions that can achieve the same purposes: for example, when bank guarantees are requested from abroad for contract advances or performance, in addition to the banking system, our client could turn to insurers who can work directly to foreign countries or through the Italian bank, without using only bank credit facilities.
Very often, Italian small and medium-sized enterprises need to learn that Italian trading companies buy the plant directly, pay by cash, and take care of them to insure the credit, handle the customs and export paperwork, and any outstanding debts. Why very few exports from our country are handled with these trading companies is a real mystery to me. Simplification is often not accepted because it has yet to be discovered.
5.Let's flip the horizon and think of an Italian ELITE company with a major Capex plan and looking for non-banking solutions. Are these innovative ideas only suitable for exporters?
Absolutely not! The exact solutions just described could be used if the sale of the capital asset ("capex") is to an Italian ELITE customer who perhaps needs a deferred payment.Whether the supplier is Italian or foreign, this alternative finance approach can even be applied. The insurance policy (private or public) on the "Italian company" risk, the operational rental of the investment etc., are solutions that help ELITE companies not to think exclusively about bank credit, leaving their Central Risk Management intact.
6. Why is ELITE a distinctive network to be a part of?
ELITE represents an extraordinary ecosystem for Corbari & International Trade Partners to reach hundreds of companies with a targeted and ideally innovative message. If you've always done it this way, now try to change, some paths and solutions could be decisive both for your financial structure and, more importantly for using finance as a tool to serve the business.

Would you tell your Inspiring Story?