Compumedics
Compumedics Limited is a Melbourne-based company which designs and manufactures computer-based medical products.
Need
In order to keep pace with the rate of growth, Compumedics needed to invest in its manufacturing capacity and make upfront payments to its component suppliers to keep production on track.
Solution
We provided a A$1m export working capital guarantee to enable ANZ to release the additional working capital Compumedics needed to fulfil contracts for six overseas buyers
Compumedics Limited is a Melbourne-based company which designs and manufactures computer-based medical products.
Compumedics specialises in the sleep medicine market, as well as the associated fields of neuro-diagnostics and brain research. The company has designed and developed world-leading software to tackle debilitating conditions such as epilepsy and has made its name by consistently innovating technological solutions to meet the needs of its sleep diagnostic and neurological monitoring customers.
Having established the business in 1987, Compumedics began exporting in 1996 when it won an exciting contract with NASA to supply the aeronautics agency with its sleep diagnostics devices.
The company has grown and expanded rapidly since then, and now export represents approximately 85 per cent of the business.
Compumedics’ most important export market is the US, the world’s largest medical device market. After the US, Germany and Japan are key markets, as well as a number of other European countries. China is also an increasingly important market offering some great growth opportunities for medical devices.
The company is headquartered in Abbotsford, Melbourne, where all of its R&D and a significant proportion of manufacturing still takes place.
With the support of Export Finance Australia, we’re looking to grow our neurology business significantly and to continue to expand our sleep diagnostic business. Export Finance Australia’s funding will help us meet the demand of that growth over the next 12 – 18 months.
David Lawson
CFO, Compumedics
Business growth
Off the back of a strengthening US market and a number of new contract wins, Compumedics has recently embarked on a strategy to grow its neurology business significantly over the next few years.
As the business has been growing, new contracts started stacking up and Compumedics was faced with a constant backlog of orders.
As with many businesses in the manufacturing sector, lead time from receiving orders to delivering product can be an issue. In order to keep pace with the rate of growth, Compumedics needed to invest in its manufacturing capacity and make upfront payments to its component suppliers to keep production on track.
Financial assistance
Compumedics’ bank, ANZ, was unable to provide the additional finance required. We provided a A$1m export working capital guarantee to enable ANZ to release the additional working capital Compumedics needed to fulfil contracts for six overseas buyers located in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Kuwait and Italy.
“Compumedics is a fascinating business winning high profile work overseas with the likes of NASA, Stanford and Harvard Universities, London School of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health in the US. We’re delighted to be able to help them finance their next growth phase,” Export Finance Australia’s Philip Smith commented.