Meridian Logistics Ltd
THIRD-PARTY LOGISTICS · SECOND GENERATION
A second-generation 3PL that has just won its largest customer's renewal. That customer is now 58% of revenue, up from 31%, on a five-year contract with a ninety-day break clause.
Meridian Logistics 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
- Requested
- US$6.0m term
- Purpose
- 18 linehaul units and a distribution centre fitout
- Serves
- One customer's new contract
- Contract
- 5 years, 90-day break
- Revenue
- US$52m, up 21% in two years
- Top customer
- 58% of revenue, from 31%
- EBITDA margin
- 8.2%, down 90 bps on renewal
- Fleet age
- 6.8 years, replacement deferred
// WHAT THE BANK DID
Approved, structured to the contract rather than to the request: the trucks funded in full over five years, the dedicated fitout amortised conservatively over thirty-six months.
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 MD'S CHAIRThe Ninety DaysThe bank funded the trucks for five years and the fit-out for three, and told you it is lending to how hard you are to replace. What do you do with that?
- THE CUSTOMER'S CHAIREveryone Signs ItYour logistics supplier is borrowing US$6m to serve you, and its bank keeps asking about your ninety-day clause. Everyone signs it. Should you keep it?
Nothing further is recorded here about Meridian Logistics. This record holds published files only — when the business next appears in an issue, its entry grows.