FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
The market for verified PPE is currently an extreme seller’s market. There are many more qualified buyers than legitimate sellers. Sellers are not willing to provide the lot numbers, SGS and other credentials to verify that the product exists and that it is legitimate until receiving confirmation that the buyer is legitimate and has the necessary funds.
The SOP includes product verification during the escrow step before the transaction is finalized. There can be very rare exceptions, usually only after a failed transaction when the SGS was completed for that transaction.
Another reason that the sellers will not supply SGS, POP and other verification at the front end of the transaction is that the PPE market has been rife with fraud on both the buyer and seller sides. Fraudulent buyers have submitted orders with stolen SGS numbers, batch and lot numbers. The FBI, CIA and Homeland Security are monitoring PPE transactions for evidence of fraud.
3M and other providers are now operating more as underwriters and have chosen a limited number of sellers mandates and sellers agents who are authorized to bring buyers to the table. These deals require an “extreme alignment of details” to move to completion. For example, the LOI and LOA must use the language provided by the sellers agents for the deal to be considered. When the documents and the language they contain follow the SOP, sellers attorney can review them rapidly and send them through the system. When the documents do not conform to their expectations, it slows and complicates the process by requiring them to scrutinize every word. Using the SOP moves your order into a superior position for review and approval.
If you follow the Aspiri/3M SOP precisely, your transaction will have priority over those of other buyers.
In addition, make sure your LOI and LOA follow the form we provide exactly.
Your BCL must be from a U.S. bank or an international bank with high visibility in the U.S., e.g. Bank of America, Chase, Citibank, PNC, Wells Fargo. Sellers require that the funds are banked in the US in part because their transactions are scrutinized by multiple government agencies to prevent money laundering and other illegal activities.
Banks with questionable practices such as Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse will not be considered.
Your IMFPA should list a maximum of two partners so that the sellers do not have to validate a large number of parties to approve the deal.
Be aware that submitting multiple offers that fail to close a deal will also cause your deal to drop to a lower priority.
Once you’ve submitted your LOI and LOA, Aspiri introduces you to a prospective seller. You will have the time and opportunity to negotiate price during the course of making the deal. The purpose of the LOI and LOA is to authorize Aspiri to locate a legitimate seller for your deal.
The vast majority of deals, approximately 97%, fall apart when the buyer either does not follow the seller’s SOP or is unable to provide proof of funds to complete the transaction. Aspiri has worked with representatives, including the attorneys on the seller side of the transaction, to verify the precise SOP necessary to close these deals. Aspiri’s access to a wide number of 3M Distributor channels (currently 11, and growing), each representing 20 – 35 private sellers who have allotments of product or hold title to certain lots, allows us to source your order quickly. Our partners on the sellers side are responsible for one third of all successful transactions in this space.
We are assured by our sellers agent that, if a buyer has legitimate money and can provide proof of that, I have a legitimate seller.
It’s becoming more difficult to predict the timelines for a deal to close, in part due to increased scrutiny from government authorities. The very best case is around thirty days based on document flow between buyer and seller. When the documents do not conform to their expectations, it slows and complicates the process by requiring them to scrutinize every word. Using the SOP moves your order into a superior position for review and approval.
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