Lewis Hart

Hmm.

But the typical consumer is a physical merchant, and they may be in the energy space, they may be in the metal space, or they may be in the agricultural space.

Their job is not to speculate on prices, contrary to popular belief.

You think commodity trader, most people think speculation.

That's actually not what they do.

They are essentially supply chain managers.

That's their role.

And they are the largest consumers of commodity finance.

And what are they purchasing?

They're purchasing, you said it well at the beginning, shiploads of copper cathode.

containers of coffee, green coffee, unroasted coffee in burlap bags.

Yeah.

So essentially the basic product is a line of credit, a secured line of credit.

And that line of credit, kind of like a credit card, can be used to buy eligible commodities.

So it's a line of credit that's self-liquidating, meaning once you make the loan, you know what the client's buying and you know what the source of repayment is.

That's very different than other types of lending that take much longer to repay.

Okay.

So it's very short term, it's self-liquidating, and it's secured by inventory.

And then when the inventory is sold, it's secured by the account receivable that results from the sale of the inventory.

The receivable gets paid, and then it keeps happening again and again.