Worldwide Finance Awards 2020

Acquisition International - 2020 Worldwide Finance Awards 27 ounded in summer 2011 by Mrs. Chiara-Felicitas Otto, exficon has rapidly grown into one of the leading lights in export finance consulting. A boutique firm, the team treat each client with an extraordinary degree of care and attention that ensures their individual needs and requirements are not overlooked. Much of the firm’s work involves offering clients expert consulting services regarding the bankability of export and project finance transactions. While the company is based in Germany, the team has a strong focus on enabling bankable deals across the African continent. With expertise in complex transactions, cross-industry knowledge and outstanding product expertise, the team has ensured that their clients get the results they want. Over the years, exficon has developed incredibly strong connections with many different banks and financing institutions, allowing them unique access to commercial financing and funding projects with a promotional or development focus. Clients are able to take advantage of these connections when working alongside a business partner such as exficon. While the team often takes on private clients, it is occasionally mandated by commercial banks or development institutions to structure a transaction on their behalf or consult on a deal’s existing structure showing clearly how highly the opinion of the exficon team is regarded. Good financial advice can be challenging to come by, especially if you are working in a specific region. For those in Africa, however, the clear gold standard of advisoris the team behind exficon GmbH. For nearly ten years, exficon has been providing exceptional advice for those looking to make a transaction into a major success. We profile the firm to find out more. Best Africa-Focused Financial Advisory Firm 2020 F While much of the team’s work uses their expertise in this field, exficon has proven itself capable of handling assignments in tender, sourcing and agent roles. This has involved researching a great deal of laws to ensure that the team can address both the operational and legal challenges of this work. It has now undertaken over a hundred different assignments in this role, often conducting the entire technical tender procedure and evaluating the most suitable financing solution for the products being sourced in the technical tender part. The backbone of Germany’s exporters is its SMEs, and these have been hit badly by the COVID-19 pandemic. Exports have all but halted, with delays and insecurities rife it has naturally affected how exficon has been able to work, with the team witnessing first-hand the difficulties that exporters face. As international borders gradually reopen, and people adapt to the new normal, it is expected that the usual workload will return to the company, as it returns to their clients. Despite the pandemic, it seems like 2020 will still be a year to celebrate for the team. The year-end result of 2019 was incredibly positive and has allowed exficon to secure several mandates for the future. Lockdown has encouraged the team to develop a new product in a digital space, offering digital services for electronic procurement as part of the company’s tender agency desk. This broadening of their outlook to meet demand has allowed the team to thrive to this day. As the team looks forward, it is clear that a great deal of the firm’s success comes from the team’s ability to work well with clients, not only delivering what was promised, but stepping it up to the next level. It’s this ability that clients keep coming back for, and what has made the team such an incredible success. Company: exficon GmbH Name: Chiara-Felicitas Otto Web Address: www.exficon.de