03. Focus

2018 Financial Fairplay AG started to build a distribution network for branded consumer goods on the African continent. At the same time, Financial Fairplay AG entered cooperations with selected, respected wholesalers in Eastern Europe, the CIS and the Middle East. This quickly growing business is now the main focus of the company.

Why did we develop this business model?

Investors looking for better deals

For many years, Davies Guttmann was advising and conducting international trade financing deals. In recent years with extremely low bond yields and expensive stock market valuations, investors are desperately looking for Alternative Investments with higher return potential. The margins in regular consumer goods trading deals became continuously smaller. Investors and Financiers are looking for deals that are more attractive.

The “developing countries”demand

An increasing number of people in African countries and others ”developing countries” are looking to buy western, branded consumer goods. Often it is difficult, too expensive or simply impossible to buy such goods in many of these countries. Many wholesalers and distributers in Africa would like to buy branded western consumer goods, however often they do not have the possibility to finance such deals, to buy container loads of goods.

Many US and European producers are interested to sell their products to African countries, but direct business is very difficult because of political risks, security issues, lack of financing from potential clients, missing distribution, no local brand building support, etc.

Our team has established business experience and CEO Davies Guttmann is a deal maker and has longtime business relationships in Africa and others parts of the world, so he tried to develop the best strategy to match the demand in Africa and the wish to sell from Western brands. He found the perfect solution:

Online shops

If we look at the success and growth of Amazon, eBay, Alibaba etc. it is completely clear that the future (if not the present) of selling consumer goods is online. This is a trend, which was very successful in the USA, Europe and many Asian countries. Now more and more African countries are building and developing their online shops as well.

Working with a local African sales team, in 2018 Financial Fairplay AG signed cooperation contracts with a surprising high number of online shops over the African continent. Financial Fairplay AG is buying the goods for them and is fully financing all deals. The online shops get the goods in smaller quantities on consignment. Currently we do have such agreements in 8 African countries and are in advanced negotiations in 15 other countries. A number of the important Online Shops act as wholesalers in Africa as well.

Benefits for the Online Shops in Africa

For the online shops in African countries, this is a perfect solution because:

• Financial Fairplay AG is sourcing for them the best and fastest moving brands and goods in USA in Europe and helping them to put together balanced and attractive portfolios of western consumer goods. Financial Fairplay AG makes sure, that all goods are original as sold in the USA and Europe, no imitations, no inferior versions for “poor” countries, etc.
• They don’t have to finance the goods. Financial Fairplay AG will buy the goods and deliver them on consignment. The African partners will pay when they sell and can than re-order.
• The shops can buy smaller quantities of goods (not full container loads). Especially in the beginning, it is important to test, what and how much is selling, without having to commit to large quantities. If products don’t sell at all, the online shops have the possibility to return the goods to Financial Fairplay AG, who will then sell them to other online shops in different African countries.

Benefits for the manufacturers

• They can deliver to African countries without taking political or financial risks. Financial Fairplay AG, a swiss company, will pre-finance all deals completely.
• They can have a large number of small customers in Africa, without having to deal with each of them. Financial Fairplay AG will consolidate the orders.
• They can sell to countries in Africa that have been too dangerous to deal with until now.
• A lean and transparent structure: no distributors needed. The goods go directly from the manufacturer to the Online-shops (and from there to the end-consumers) with only one stop: Financial Fairplay AG. Looking at Amazon, etc. we know, this is the best way to go.
• Financial Fairplay AG will help them to establish their brand in the different countries.

Benefits for Financial Fairplay AG’s investors

• Now we come back to start, namely investors looking for better margins. With this model, Financial Fairplay AG offers its investors the opportunity to finance deals with attractive margins. The risk is lowered significantly thru diversification. That means that the investors will finance always a larger number of deals (proportionally). Every customer will only get a relatively small quantity of goods at the time (and only get a second shipment, once he has paid for the first one). So even if there is a problem some customers (to be very honest: we are dealing with African countries, so there are problems from time to time!), the overall margin is still good enough to compensate for smaller losses.