Tungsten Corporation – first invoice discounted
Tungsten Corporation plc (LSE:TUNG) is pleased to give an update to the market. Results for the full year to 30th April, 2014 will be announced in July.
Tungsten continues to make further progress overall in integrating its financing and analytics capabilities into the e-Invoicing network; and in re-organising the combined Tungsten group to be capable of large-scale growth. The necessary systems are now fully tested and ready to connect our Tungsten Network to Tungsten Bank. We are also ensuring that our systems can connect the Tungsten Network with third party finance providers such as Blackstone Tactical Opportunities where discussions are on-going to establish a global funding vehicle run by Tungsten.
With the agreement of FIBI and of the Financial Conduct Authority, we have commenced invoice discounting activity. Selected UK suppliers have been invited to discount invoices over the Tungsten Network, with the first discount having been successfully processed last week. This will provide useful market experience as a prelude to full mobilization, should the final change of control approval be forthcoming from the Prudential Regulatory Authority. Whilst still of necessity a limited activity, this discounting has been done on the terms anticipated in our business model. The board continues to be hopeful that the required approval will be obtained by the end of May 2014 and a further announcement will be made in this context, when appropriate.
In addition, the Company announces changes at a senior management level. Lincoln Jopp will join the board as group chief operating officer. He is leading our commitment to network resilience and security, and to making the Tungsten Invoice Status Service (ISS) available for many more of our customers. ISS enables suppliers to see in real time the progress of their invoice from invoice submitted to paid, and reduces the calls into buyers.
As presaged at the IPO, to improve our buyer service, we are combining the buyer sales, programme and account management units, introducing client relationship managers and service delivery managers for every buyer account. We have created a rainmaker role, for example, to work with EU governments as they consider mandating the use of electronic invoicing in public procurement ahead of the forthcoming EU directive. We are delighted that Charles Bryant, co-chairman of the European E-invoicing Service Providers Association (EESPA), has agreed to lead our thought leadership efforts in this regard.
As we make these wide ranging organisational improvements to the Tungsten Network, Luke McKeever, former CEO of OB10, is leaving the group. A separate announcement has been made on this. His managerial responsibilities have been assumed by Edi Truell and Lincoln Jopp, and the buyer-facing rainmaker roles are being fulfilled by John Hall and Ruud van Hilten in EMEA; and by Rick Hurwitz, Peter Schiff Smith and Paul Frederick in the US.
First successes for our new organisational structure now include agreements with eight of the top ten global business process outsourcers that they will actively promote Tungsten to their major customers. The Tungsten Network continues to add major buyers, for example in the healthcare area, who should benefit from the high percentage of their suppliers already on the Network. We are working to take several of our major customers global. In addition, we are delighted that the US Department of Veterans Affairs is rolling out Tungsten, having declared to its suppliers the mandatory use of the Tungsten Network.
Edmund Truell, group CEO of Tungsten Corporation plc, commented, “Tungsten has this week started to offer suppliers access to trade and working capital finance on a transparent and simple to execute basis, which we intend to be the start of a very major financial transformation.”