Vikoma has won 25 global tenders to manufacture and supply the pollution control equipment to businesses in Europe, Canada, India, the Middle East and China using the guarantees.
One such export was the provision of oil skimming equipment to a base in India. The equipment will be used in the event of an oil spill to protect the country’s coastlines and wildlife.
Vikoma has been trading for 50 years and has exported throughout this time. The majority of their customer base is located overseas.
Vikoma qualified for support from UK Export Finance, the government’s export credit agency. UKEF’s bond support scheme freed up funds that would previously have been spent by Vikoma on bank guarantee deposits.
UKEF is providing partial (up to 80% of the value of the bond) guarantees to banks providing bonds, enabling Vikoma’s working capital to be spent fulfilling a range of export deals worth millions of pounds in revenue.
Karen Lucas, Managing Director, Vikoma, said:
“One of the challenges we have with exporting is that we might want to get an advance payment from a customer and stage payments through the duration of the contract to fund the work in progress. But the customer doesn’t necessarily want to part with the cash without some form of guarantee, which is where we need to use bank guarantees.
“UKEF involvement is critical because there’s no point getting advance funding for contracts if we then have to allocate that money to one side to secure the bank performance bond.”
Stuart Stoter, Export Finance Manager for Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Hampshire and Isle of Wight, said:
“By helping Vikoma and their bank with the issuance of Bonds and Guarantees, we have been able to support export contracts to a wide range of countries. Vikoma is a great example of a successful exporter and UK Export Finance stands ready to support other UK businesses trying to expand their exports.”
