JNRS AND THE INTERNATIONAL PARTNERSHIP

JNRS is specialised in setting up partnership between foreign and French companies:

- Commercial agreements
- Technology transfers
- Joint ventures
- Minority or majority equity shareholding acquisition or sale

MAIN ASPECTS OF THESE PARTNERSHIPS

a) Commercial agreements

Each company markets the complementary products of its partner.
However, this will not exclude direct export sales through foreign importer distributor or sale agencies.

b) Technology transfers

Generally speaking, such transfers involve licence acquisition or sale including training of the personnel and technical assistance from the licensor to the licensee.

c) Joint ventures

One of the two companies involved provides its partners with a specific product, its technical assistance and training to manufacture and market the product in its country through a common subsidiary : the joint venture.

d) Equity shareholding acquisition or sale

According to the financial possibilities of the foreign company, it could be contemplated minority, majority or 100 % shareholdings.

The targeted French company should make possible the foreign investing company to expand its activities in France and abroad.

JOINT VENTURES

The best solution assumes that the two partners create a common subsidiary located close by the receiving company.

Each partner (the supplier of the product and the receiver) provide the joint venture with the following assets:

a) The supplier provides its products, its know-how, its technical assistance and the training of the personnel of the receiver. The value of these assets represents the supplier’s shareholding in the equity of the joint venture (generally between 25 % and 50 %)

That equity shareholding could be increased if the suppliers provide:

- equipment and specific machines
- capital funds

b) The receiver will be the responsible of the manufacture (with the technical assistance of the supplier) and the marketing of the product in its own country and may be selected between the two parties.

He will provide its acquaintance and experience of the market and of the potential customers for the products of the joint venture.

All the assets brought to the joint venture will be estimated, in order to define the shares of the two partners in the equity of the company which has been previously defined, according to the financial requirements to run and to develop the common company.

The key point of the success requires that the partner has been carefully selected.

In return, the same type of cooperation can be completed in the opposite way.

Sometimes, European partners companies have splited their production and specialised their own plants, in each country, each plant manufacturing for the two companies.
Such an organisation reduce cost production.

WHAT TYPE OF PARTNERSHIP ?

The scheme of the operation can be summarize as follows:

A foreign company in a given field of activity manufactures and markets two lines of products: A and B.
The strategies is to look for, in selected countries, French or European companies which, in the same field of activity, manufacture and market products C and D.

The French or European partner could be in a first approach, interested in complementary products A and B, in order to widen the range of its own lines of products C and D.

In return, the foreign firm could be interested in complementary products C and D.

Of course, these schemes are theoretical, but the principle lies in the search of partners providing complementary markets.

HOW TO LOOK FOR PARTNERS

The approach should not be limited in a simple introduction with one or two foreign companies thanks to the information communicated by different sources. it’s necessary to carry out a thorough screening of the French or European companies involved in the required field of activity.

The best way of approach

At first, its necessary to set up a presentation file of the foreign company, in order to make clear the advantages that the foreign company could provide the French or foreign companies.

This file, specifying clearly the objectives of the foreign company, will be mailed to a list carefully selected of French or European complementary partners.

Generally speaking, in developed countries, about 25 to 40 French or European companies are contacted in France or in Europe. Sometimes more. As an example, it has been written to 74 companies in the aerospace field in the USA and 14 among them replied mentioning their interest.

Our experience is that 15 % to 20 % of the contacted companies answer and confirm an interest in pursuing the negotiation.

In emerging countries, the number of companies to be contacted would be smaller.

The meeting completed with the potential partners provide the foreign company with a lot of very interesting information and make possible the choice of the best partner.

What are the companies interested in these partnership?

generally speaking, the offer of partnership from foreign companies can be well welcomed both in developed and emerging countries.

For instance, as far as the USA are concerned ,French companies looking for partnerships sometimes reply. it’s not useful to look for partners in this country. the American have not waited for us to develop such products.

However, the experience is that it is always possible to find American companies interested in complementary products, even if they are already manufactured in USA. As a matter of fact, some of them are ready to compete with the existing manufacturers and they think that they could become more competitive.

As an example; in Turkey, most of the companies are interested in western technologies.

As a conclusion, There is a potential demand for partnerships everywhere in the world.

To have a contact with JNRS, Louis Jeannest