Turning uncertainties
into opportunities

Credendo had a record-breaking year in 2021 – the year of its centenary – as it continued to support businesses recovering from the negative effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The year 2021 proved to be an exceptional year for Credendo despite the lingering impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Growing demand for new and improved infrastructure across Europe bodes well for Austrian construction company PORR. With public entities keen to upgrade or completely replace underinvested bridges, roads, and railways, PORR is hoping to bid on many forthcoming developments. Its successful ability to win tenders will be underpinned by its close relationship with Credendo and the use of insurer-backed bid bonds and other guarantees.

PORR is the second-largest Austrian construction company. Founded in 1869, it is the oldest company listed on the Vienna Stock Exchange. PORR is involved in a variety of areas within the construction industry including roads, rail, tunnelling, building construction, and environmental engineering. Its key markets – which account for around 96% of its activity – are in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania. 

Despite the current rocky macroeconomic environment shaped by the Russia-Ukraine war, an energy crisis, and global inflation concerns, PORR is anticipating a healthy pipeline of projects in its key markets over the next twelve to eighteen months. 

“This is partly fuelled by investments in green projects linked to reducing polluting emissions, as well as a drive among some European countries to overhaul their public infrastructure,” says Stefan Ondra, Deputy Head Group Treasury at PORR.

“We all know there is a large amount of money coming from various bodies in the coming years such as the EU’s Green Deal, which will have links to infrastructure. So even beyond 2023 there is a big pipeline for the whole industry,” he explains. 

“In many countries, there has also been a lack of maintaining infrastructure over the last ten or fifteen years. In many parts of Germany for instance, rail and road infrastructures are virtually at their end-of-life cycle – especially when it comes to bridges,” he adds. 

Credendo supports PORR in all stages of a project’s life cycle, mainly with advance payment guarantees, performance and maintenance bonds. 

For example, at the end of 2022, Credendo provided a EUR 15.4 million advance payment bond for a project PORR is working on for a large Austrian real-estate developer. 

What Stefan Ondra appreciates when working with Credendo is its speedy service. “One of the greatest benefits is that they are one of the fastest and one of the least complicated insurers.”

PORR’s relationship with Credendo started five years ago with a small local facility in Poland via Credendo – Guarantees & Speciality Risks’ Polish subsidiary before it transferred its business to Credendo’s Austrian subsidiary. 

Now PORR has a facility of EUR 50 million from Credendo covering all regions where PORR is active, and it is very much looking to strengthen its relationship with Credendo in the coming years. 

“We started five years ago with something small at a local level and within a short period of time we have grown our cooperation to the benefit of both parties. We will try to further that cooperation,” Ondra says.

Belgium-based animal feed ingredients producer Nuscience is an innovative company using scientific research to develop feed that supports the ever-changing challenges of raising well-nourished livestock. The company is also ambitious – looking to expand into new markets in the Middle East and Africa. Its long-standing partnership with Credendo has been invaluable in aiding the company’s growth into high-risk regions that other insurers may be more reluctant to cover. 

Nuscience is based in Belgium and produces functional feed ingredients, premixes and concentrates for pigs, poultry, and cattle. It is part of the well-known Dutch cooperative Royal Agrifirm Group. The Belgian branch was established in 1989 and has a current turnover of around EUR 161 million per year. 

Based on scientific research and an understanding of the challenges farmers are facing, Nuscience’s products aim to support animals’ nutritional and health needs from the moment they are born. 

The company has pioneered new approaches towards livestock feed and how farmers look after their animals. For instance, it has developed feed products for pigs, which aim to improve gut health and form part of a broader strategy to encourage pig farmers to reduce and eventually eliminate their reliance on antibiotics and zinc oxide. 

Nuscience is present across the globe and has ambitious plans to expand into the Middle East and Africa, and it is in supporting this expansion that its partnership with Credendo – Short-Term Non-EU Risks’ team has proven invaluable. 

For example, Nuscience had a customer in a particularly tricky market to convince trade credit insurers to cover. “We have a large customer in Iraq, which is not an easy country to insure, and it is hard to provide financials and payment history on this customer. Credendo is now covering 50% of our risk on this buyer. That really helps both us and our customer to develop our partnership,” says Lieselotte Kempinck, Controller and Finance Lead at Nuscience.

What Kempinck appreciates in Credendo’s approach to doing business in these riskier markets, is its ability to take into account ‘soft information’ when making a credit decision. It considers details such as the strength of the relationship between Nuscience and its customer, and payment history rather than only relying on ‘hard data’ such as balance sheets. 

“Credendo considers each risk on a case-by-case basis, gathering the information to assess its own risk – and working together with us to find a solution for the customer,” she explains. 

This approach will support Nuscience as it expands into Africa, with the company in the process of setting up a sales office in Kenya and hoping to secure credit limits with Credendo for new customers in the country. 

“Our Middle East and Africa businesses are growth businesses, and we expect that we will have larger and more customer accounts in those markets and that total sales and revenue will increase,” she says.

John Cockerill has positioned itself as a pioneer in the environmental technology sector supporting the global transition from fossil fuels to clean energy. Its market-leading electrolysers help customers around the world produce hydrogen from renewable energy. Its long-standing partnership with Credendo has supported its growth by ensuring political and commercial risks are covered, freeing up the company to focus on managing other technical risks. 

Founded in 1817, Belgium-headquartered John Cockerill designs, installs and upgrades technological equipment in five sectors – energy, defence, industry, hydrogen, and the environment. It recorded a turnover of EUR 1,049 million across 25 countries in 2022. 

Faced with an urgent need to tackle climate change, John Cockerill has positioned itself as a leading player in supporting the energy transition. It is a pioneer in the hydrogen industry and manufactures electrolysers which convert renewable electricity into hydrogen and storage solutions for more than 500 customers in many different countries. 

The company’s strategy reflects global initiatives to develop new non-carbon technologies, with some countries such as the USA providing large amounts of state support for clean energy. “Such moves could put EU companies at a disadvantage,” says Thierry Josz, VP Legal, Trade and Export Finance at John Cockerill. 

“With the Inflation Reduction Act – introduced in mid-2022 – the USA is trying to attract a lot of technology and a lot of companies to their country. Geopolitically the EU is less protected than it was,” he says. 

John Cockerill’s partnership with Credendo is vital to the company’s success in this new but competitive global clean energy market. By obtaining insurance from Credendo, the company can ensure that its most sensitive political and commercial risks are covered. This frees up the company to focus on the risks – such as technical risk – that they have the expertise to manage. 

“We consider that the skills of this company are technical – rather than to assess sensitive political or commercial risk. This is not our job. Our job is to ensure the successful execution of the contract from a technical point of view,” says Carina Sutera Sardo, Head of Trade and Export Finance at John Cockerill. 

“This is why we consider Credendo a partner. Since the beginning of this company, the support of a public insurer was crucial for the strategy of this group,” she says.

The next step in John Cockerill’s electrolyser business is to shift the location of its factories. In a move that is reversing the decades-old globalisation trend, the company is starting to reshore some of its production capabilities. 

It wants to ensure that electrolysers producing hydrogen for Europe be made in Europe. Additionally, the company wants to make sure that via local joint venture agreements it can produce electrolysers in other countries for customers located in that area.

As an example of this shift, John Cockerill is building its first multi-site European gigafactory – with the first facility in Aspach, France. 

“Credendo has supported the company’s hydrogen business by helping it to secure financing from banks or by directly financing projects,” Sutera Sardo explains. “This new hydrogen market will require a lot of money. We need money to build gigafactories around the world,” she says.

Natixis CIB has successfully managed the challenges of the recent commodity price rises, continuing to support producers and traders with the credit limits they required – thanks in part to its partnership with Credendo. The bank is also tightening its focus on aiding the global energy transition to greener fuel. 

Natixis CIB, a subsidiary of Groupe BPCE, the second-largest banking group in France, has been a leading player in the commodity finance market for 30 years. The bank supports producers and traders across many sectors including soft commodities, mining and metals and energy. 

The bank first established a relationship with Credendo in 2007 – with the partnership further strengthened when Carole Macaire-Freynet became Global Head of Credit Insurance in 2013. Her role has grown to include infrastructure and energy transition finance – an area of increasing importance for the bank. 

Natixis CIB regularly makes use of Credendo’s Single Risk insurance – a division within the company that merged with Credendo – Excess & Surety in June 2021 to form Credendo – Guarantees & Speciality Risks. “This merger helped improve relations between Credendo and the bank even more,” says Macaire-Freynet.

“We always had a good relationship with the team, but there has been a different momentum since the merger – helped by a clear definition of who is doing what. This is to some extent facilitating us doing business,” she says. 

Since the invasion of Ukraine by Russia in February 2022, commodity finance markets have been a challenging area to work in, with the conflict between two key markets pushing energy and food prices sky high. 

“Natixis CIB was active in Ukraine and Russia for many years, so of course 2022 did affect us as we stopped doing business in these two countries,” she says. 

“There has been a clear impact on global trade flows and commodity prices. With prices increasing, traders need more support and increased credit lines – which in turn means we need to use more insurance products so that we can share the risks and preserve our balance sheet.” 

Natixis CIB is keen to maintain its support for traders and producers throughout both the good and more challenging times, particularly those involved in efforts to transition from fossil fuels to greener sources of energy. 

“ESG is a clear focus for our bank,” Macaire-Freynet says.

The bank is one of many financial institutions that signed up to the UN-backed Net-Zero Banking Alliance in April 2021, which commits members to align their lending and investment portfolios with net-zero emissions by 2050. 

Reflecting on the bank’s partnership with Credendo, Macaire-Freynet says the insurer stands out from the competition for its market knowledge. 

She goes on to explain how Natixis CIB often requires insurance capacity on transactions that are a little more complex than the average commodity finance deal. 

“When we approach the insurance market, we don’t always come with easy proposals, and some require more in-depth explanations. Credendo is very open to listening to us and our analysis and reasons why we think it is a good transaction.” 

Despite the impact of the Russia-Ukraine war on the global supply of wheat, French trader Céréalis has continued to thrive, having successfully switched to new suppliers. Aided by Credendo’s Top-Up product, Céréalis has also been able to access insurance cover and financing to meet the growing demand for wheat in its key markets.

Céréalis is a wheat trading company headquartered in Paris and established 25 years ago. It specialises in trading wheat – as well as some maize and soybean meal – and selling it to private mills in West and Central Africa. 

The company shipped approximately 350,000 tonnes of produce last year – worth around EUR 175 million – to countries such as Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Mali, Burkina Faso and Gabon. 

Céréalis used to trade in a mixture of wheat from Russia as well as produce from France and other markets. Yet, by the end of 2021, Céréalis decided to stop buying Russian wheat as it was getting increasingly difficult to do business with Russian suppliers – even before the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war in February 2022.

The company now trades French wheat, but also buys more wheat from new suppliers in Argentina and more recently Poland, which helped lessen the impact of the Russian invasion at the start of 2022 on their business. 

“We were lucky that our traders had the foresight of how the market might develop,” says Florence Nunes, Export Director at Céréalis. 

Credendo supported Céréalis throughout these challenging times, with the two companies having worked together since 2010. Céréalis commonly used credit insurance to cover the risk of non-payment. Since 2019, it has also been making use of Credendo’s Top-Up product. 

This tool allows Céréalis to obtain cover on amounts that exceed the credit limit set by its first-line insurer – it essentially ‘tops up’ the existing level of cover in place. 

It has been invaluable in supporting Céréalis’ large shipments of wheat to their most important markets in West and Central Africa. Some first-line insurers would not have sufficient credit limits to provide the required level of cover to enable Céréalis to sell their entire ship’s worth of wheat to their suppliers. 

The partnership with Credendo has also been key in helping the trading company gain access to bank financing. “We have been able to develop a financing capacity thanks to the Top-Up product. Otherwise, we would have had to rely on cash to pay the suppliers,” Nunes says.

Céréalis aims to strengthen its relationship with Credendo as it increases its customer base in Africa. 

“Our ambition is to further develop our business with Credendo and to use the Top-Up product even more. Our customers rely on us. We are working with new mills and there is a lot for us to do in the African market,” Nunes concludes.

Belgium-based renewable energy company EnergyVision has taken a pioneering new approach to building renewable energy projects. It is an approach that removes financial barriers for their customers – and it has proven successful, as the company wins more and more contracts in China and Morocco, as well as within Belgium. Its long-standing partnership with Credendo has been vital in supporting the financing of projects as well as safeguarding its investments overseas. 

EnergyVision is a Belgium-headquartered company with offices in Morocco and China, that is shaking up the renewable energy sector with a unique way of encouraging greater use of solar energy by small businesses and households.

The company – which was founded by just three friends and EUR 6,200 of equity in 2014 – is based on a ‘no capex’ business model. This means its customers are not required to make huge upfront payments for the installation of products such as solar panels. Rather EnergyVision makes its money by selling energy back to the customer at a guaranteed lower price per kilowatt hour than the customer’s current energy bills. 

Outside of Belgium, EnergyVision works on charging customers fixed instalments, but what the customer pays is in line with what they would have paid on their energy bill. 

“We take away all the worries and concerns – the technical concerns, financial concerns, and performance concerns,” says Maarten Michielssens, Group CEO and Co-founder of EnergyVision. 

“EnergyVision’s partnership with Credendo has been instrumental, providing the financing and insurance that underpins the company’s business model,” he adds. The company makes use of Credendo’s supplier credit and forfaiting products as well as its insurance cover on foreign direct investments (FDI) in China and Morocco. 

“When the company launched in 2014, appetite for financing renewables in Belgium was very low,” Michielssens explains. 

“We wanted to provide financial formulas for customers that did not have any resources and because we were a small business, banks were not willing or eager to provide financing. We were a new company and didn’t have much apart from a firm belief that it would work. That’s not a bankable story,” he says. 

However, Credendo did see potential and decided to support EnergyVision. “I often joke that Credendo is one of our founders. But the reality is, without the solution from Credendo, we would not have grown, we would not have existed as we do today with a EUR 134 million annual turnover,” says Michielssens. 

Since 2014, EnergyVision has built and operated over 12,000 energy projects, producing more than 630 million kWh of renewable energy every year. 

The company is also one of the first to benefit from the new Credendo Green Package, launched last September – a package of financial benefits granted to projects that meet Credendo’s environmental criteria. Benefits include longer durations on financing, larger financing amounts, and a higher proportion of the risk to be covered by Credendo – cover can go up to 98%.

Internationally renowned entertainment and gaming brand Nintendo saw its sales in the Benelux region flourish during the pandemic, with more people stuck at home looking for something entertaining to do. Nintendo Benelux’s existing partnership with Credendo – Short-Term Non-EU Risks proved to be essential in meeting this growing demand and the related increase in risk exposure, as well as helping the company continue to manage seasonal fluctuations in its business.

Insurance broker Miller wants to be a ‘one-stop shop’ for insurance needs throughout the global commodity supply chain, from cargo and marine cover to political risk insurance. Long-standing partner Credendo is playing a key role in supporting the broker’s ambitions through the provision of various products including single-risk and short-term whole turnover cover.

Unperturbed by the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, family-owned construction and property development company Legendre Group has cemented its strong position in France, remaining committed to building long-term projects within its domestic market while also looking at opportunities abroad. As a new client of Credendo, it benefited from a French retention money bond that supported a new arena project near Paris that will hopefully spark a pipeline of similar projects across the country.

Italian family-owned industrial group Estral values setting its own credit limits for its customers – recognising that assessing risk is about getting to know the customer well and not just relying on commercial information available. Credendo has been supporting the company’s credit management processes, which is part of the reason why Estral’s partnership with the insurer has lasted for more than two decades.

Dredging, Environmental and Marine Engineering (DEME Group) and Jan De Nul are Belgium’s leading maritime companies worldwide, specialising in dredging, land reclamation and offshore services. As long-standing clients of Credendo – Export Credit Agency, they have made regular use of credit insurance products to secure multiple international contracts.

Moravia Steel is one of the biggest producers of metallurgical products in the Czech Republic with a high level of exposure on debtors within the EU and beyond. Credendo has supported the business through the provision of large credit limits to help manage the company’s exposure, coupled with a flexible approach to problem-solving.

In the midst of a strategic transformation of its legacy portfolio of polyurethane solutions, and with sustainable innovation at the heart of its strategy, Belgian multinational Recticel continues to build on its leading positions in its core markets. A Credendo client for 25 years, the company recently benefited from a Credendo – Export Credit Agency financial guarantee for a strategic acquisition intended to accelerate its growth.

Casibeans, a family-owned Belgian SME incorporated in 1935 and now run by the third generation, is a global trader of pulses. The company makes use of Credendo – Short-Term Non-EU Risks to cover the risk of non-payment of its clients based in market as far afield as Trinidad and Tobago.

Construction company Townmore has set its sights on becoming Ireland’s leading contractor for the sectors in which it specialises. It recently established a relationship with the new Irish branch of specialised subsidiary Credendo – Excess & Surety, which issued the company with a performance bond for work it is carrying out on a new residential development.

A leading manufacturer of heating elements, Czech company KORADO has been making use of Credendo – Short-Term EU Risks for the last two decades, harnessing Credendo’s ability to monitor the financial health of its customers across Europe, and leveraging more than just essential insurance protection.

Belgian SME BOSAQ’s mission is to provide the world with sustainable premium drinking water in a socially responsible way. The company’s biggest challenges when rolling out its projects are often bureaucratic, and to that end its relationship with Credendo – Export Credit Agency provides useful support for winning over government clients.

The global commodity trade finance unit of Banque Cantonale de Genève (BCGE), active in soft commodities, metals and energy, makes use of the credit and political risk capacity offered by Credendo – Single Risk, demand for which may be growing within the commodities sector.

Having successfully established itself more than 100 years ago, German company Floragard is a leader in the development and marketing of premium earths and professional substrates. The company recently turned to Credendo – Excess & Surety for top-up credit insurance cover, which it says is a necessary component in achieving its sales objectives in some of the more complex markets to which it exports.