Picture courtesy of Zurich Tourist Board

Corporate Advice and Management Services AG (CAMS)   is a Swiss company founded and based in Canton Bern by professionals who with their team of advisers and consultants considered that there was a gap in the market for businesses requiring assistance when assessing their current position. These businesses may wish to give consideration to rationalisation and reorganisation, to seek expansion into new markets with their existing products or to join in ventures with partners introduced by CAMS to exploit a new market or product world wide.

We would give practical consideration to any applicant business working in a contractual relationship with us or a third party introduced by us in a joint venture undertaken or as your agents in promoting your products and services beyond existing markets and product lines. In this venture, we would either look to create a separate company to exploit the new market areas, new products or services or work on a one-to-one contractual basis for the services we provide. Our remuneration would be based on either a pre-negotiated 'fee plus disbursements' basis or alternatively as a percentage of gross or net profitability based on the results of the project that we had jointly undertaken.

We would also enter into exclusivity and privacy agreements in order to protect each other and the right of each party to disclose to each other full trading information relating to the clients business so that the input of our services could be fully calculated for the purposes of assessing progress in the consultancy or project and to aid calculation of our fees or commission based on joint profits.

The obvious question that you should ask yourself. To assist you in considering what the answer may be, let us look at five specific case studies in which advice has been sought by businesses from CAMS in varying situations and industries:

An Italian leather goods manufacturer was finding his trading margins gradually reducing and was also coming under financial pressure with rising staff and social security costs.

Advice was given to restrict the more expensive Italian goods line being manufactured by him and to out-source production to Tunisia. A separate company with other partners was formed to acquire the out-sourced production and to sell the products to the Italian manufacturer directly. The profits of acquiring the cheaper product were effectively left in the newly formed company for further expansion and profit sharing in due course. Later on, a separate EU sales company with its own VAT number was organised for the client to exploit new markets, which CAMS had advised upon. This vehicle was used to conduct the majority of export sales. The eventual outcome was that the client effectively divested himself of most of his company's manufacturing base and became an international trading agent using various trading vehicles and was able to reduce to very small quantities his own manufacturing work force and to dispose of redundant premises.

An Italian furniture manufacturer was suffering with a static Italian market and lacked the language ability and know-how to efficiently exploit the EU market.

After considering the clients production methods and researching the Belgian / Luxembourg market, CAMS advised simplification of the product being produced with less ornate features and found a retail outlet for the client. The retail outlet formed an EU trading company with the Italian manufacturer and both are now successfully and profitably working together in a joint venture selling Italian furniture to other retail outlets in the Benelux countries.

A Belgian road haulage company was seeking expansion in the EU and wanted suggestions on its operation and the marketability of its service.

After reviewing options that could make it different from the rest of the other hauliers,CAMS advised the company that it should reduce the size of its fleet and consider specialist contracts such as toxic wastes. A separate company was founded for this purpose to provide protection if the venture should fail. At the same time the change in the taxation levels on lorries in the UK made the running of UK-registered vehicles very expensive in comparison to foreign registered lorries. An EU company was formed tolease the vehicles from a Belgian company, which in turn rented the individual vehicles to UK hauliers. This enabled the utilisation of surplus lorries by way of leasing them out and to accumulate the profits in a different EU company so as to allow further development and profit accumulation and distribution outside Belgium and the UK.

A Swedish computer expert was offered a post as a consultant to work for 6 months for an American company in France dealing with the year 2000 problem. The client was also involved in other contracts and needed assistance and advice on how to structure his services most cost effectively.

CAMS founded an EU company to engage the services of the Swedish client, which in turn formed a contractual relationship with the American company and two other companies that wished to engage the services of the Swedish computer expert via the newly-formed vehicle. The newly-formed company is a tax efficient vehicle that is now being used to exploit further contracts and engage other consultants in the computer field allowing accumulation of profits in a non-Swedish taxable vehicle.

A Belgian shipping company wished to join other world-wide shippers with a view to forming a company in the buying of Charter Party contracts on the best possible terms.

CAMS founded an International Business company (IBC) and approached other shippers jointly with the client to form a syndicate under the auspices of the IBC in order to acquire the most favourable terms on Charter Party Contracts. This was acquired by the IBC and resold at a profit to the participating companies thereby leaving the newly acquired profit in the IBC so as to fund future contracts and to develop trading advantages with a view to ultimate profit distribution between the participating companies.