Kowhai Retail Group Ltd
HOMEWARES AND GIFTING RETAIL · 14 STORES
Fourteen stores carrying US$1.1m of aged stock from a Christmas that did not clear — and buying 22% more for the next one. Gross margin has fallen five points on clearance.
Kowhai Retail Group Ltd is a fictional construction. The figures, relationships and decisions on this page are illustrative — built for teaching, not drawn from any real borrower or transaction.
// WHAT WAS ASKED
- Existing seasonal
- US$2.0m
- Requested
- US$3.5m
- Last peak drawn
- US$2.6m including overdraft
- Asked for by
- Mid-September, when orders ship
- Revenue
- US$31m, up 6%
- Aged stock
- US$1.1m, 18% of inventory
- Gross margin
- 46%, from 51% on clearance
- This year's buy
- Up 22%, on an unsold year
- Operating cash flow
- US$0.4m, down 60%
// WHAT THE BANK DID
Funded to the level the business had demonstrated — US$2.6m with a clean-down covenant — and no further. The increment was left to shareholder money or to evidence: pre-orders.
The reasoning is in the file itself — the four options that were on the table, how readers answered, and the senior banker's read of the same numbers.
// READ FROM OTHER CHAIRS
The same file, and the same week, from the chairs of the people on the other side of it.
- THE MERCHANT'S CHAIRThe September ShipsThe bank funded last year's peak and called the rest a bet. The orders ship in September. US$900k of buy is now yours to fund, sell, or cut.
- THE SHAREHOLDER'S CHAIRWhose Money It IsThe bank drew the line between a loan and a bet, and the MD is asking you to fund the bet. Whose money is it? Yours. Now what?
Nothing further is recorded here about Kowhai Retail Group. This record holds published files only — when the business next appears in an issue, its entry grows.