Case Study

Danilo Group - a major player

Entrepreneur Laurence Prince has fought many battles on the way to building his company Danilo into a major player in the production of calendars and greetings cards.

And, according to Laurence, the company is where it is today partly thanks to the great support that he has received from Close Invoice Finance along the way.

Today, the company has a turnover in excess of £10 million, and has operations in Germany and distribution networks for calandars in the Far East, Scandinavia, and most EEC Countries. Danilo has established distribution for the greetings card side of the business in the USA and Canada.

Established company
Danilo now has a presence in most major high street retailers in the UK and moved into the greetings card market last year. "It was a natural progression for the business," says Laurence. "In the last year we have invested £250,000 into setting up the infrastructure for the greetings card operation. This was all self financed within the Group."

Danilo's calendars are on bedroom walls all over the globe featuring such people as glamour model Caprice, cartoon favourite The Simpsons, South Park, American sitcom favourite Friends, as well as football favourites Manchester United. He says: "We've also included this year a new range of 365 day page desktop calandars and one of the favourites this year is bound to be the TV programme hosted by Chris Tarrant, "Who Wants To be A Millionaire."

Comments Laurence Prince: "We arrange photoshoots for many of the personalities featured on our calendars. One of the latest is TV favourite Gail Porter. And in the near future we will be featuring the BBC gardening pin-up Charlie Dimmock." Now he is looking at building up the e-commerce side of the business through a new web site - www.danilo.com - which includes a mail order facility.

Fighting back with Close in his corner
Laurence entered the printing industry in 1964 as an apprentice and six years later began his own business, moving into the production of calendars in 1978. Danilo, which was named after his three children, grew very quickly, but unfortunately two major bad debts in the mid 80's sent him reeling. Laurence Prince was facing his first major fight. His creditors backed him, and he was introduced to a firm of factors. With their help, and by introducing efficiency and cost-cutting measures, he traded himself out of his predicament and to such an extent that he was able to build up a £500,000 reserve with the factors to call upon when necessary. But on a Friday morning in February 1993, just as he was asking for a mere one-tenth of his reserve, the factoring company's bank was calling in the Receivers. He was informed by the Receivers: "You have lost your money - it's ours !"

Laurence Prince says of that day: "I had been pulling the company back and just as I was putting my problems behind me I was in trouble again - through no fault of my own." With all his available funds apparently lost, and his bank account frozen by a far-from-understanding Lloyds Bank manager, it was time for Laurence Prince to fight again. Once more suppliers were canvassed for - and gave - their support; a Press campaign revealing the injustice of the situation was mounted; faxes were despatched to the Chairman of five international banks enlisting their support; and Close Invoice Finance were contacted.

On Sunday, just 48 hours after Laurence Prince had received the devastating news, he was meeting Leslie Bland and his team in the Close Invoice Finance offices at Newbury. There and then it was agreed that CIF would factor all new invoices to give Danilo much needed cash immediately, and would give as much support and back-up as possible to enable the company to resume trading. This gave Laurence breathing space to continue with his battle to recover his lost £1/2million.

Personal Contact Always Available
He recalls: "Close Invoice Finance were our saviours. Gradually we picked ourselves up and reached the point where we were able to set up a full factoring agreement. Close Invoice Finance helped when nobody else would touch us. Our main source of revenue was from them." But not only does Laurence remember the financial backing he received, he recalls the personal contact which was always available to him whenever he needed it.

(Times have changed and he now has the complete support of Lloyds TSB and Midland Bank, now HSBC, because of understanding bank managers). By this time Laurence Prince was tempering all his massive enthusiasm with an amount of caution, so when he expanded his overseas business he made sure he had all the cover possible, including credit insurance. A prudent move as it turned out, as one of his German customers failed and he was forced to put in a claim for £85,000 against cover of £500,000.

The claim was paid, but the insurance company - ECGD - refused to reinsure him, although he was well within his credit limit. One could be forgiven for feeling that all that was bad had, by now, happened to Laurence Prince; one could also be forgiven for feeling that we were unlikely to see the demise of that household name Athena. In fact, when Athena crashed with debts of £160million Laurence Prince was one of the creditors, but he did not suffer - he had taken out Close Invoice Finance credit insurance and was repaid immediately.

And we have not turned him away just because he has made a claim! Comments Laurence: "I like to remain loyal to people who stand by me and I remember when Close were our only allies! In theory we don't need a factoring facility, but we would have to increase our accounts department by a further six people. We like the facilities that Close offer us, including credit insurance on all clients."

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