"We wanted to be the training wheels for small companies," says Fozdar, who with Waldkoetter and two other businessmen formed Bristol International Ltd. in March 1988. As a trade merchant bank, Bristol would provide the financing and expertise needed by small and midsize companies to engage in foreign sales. It would have more flexibility than its cousins in commercial banking. Unlike a typical bank, it would lend against the transaction rather than against the company's balance sheet, taking either outright title to the goods or a security interest in them. For the risks it assumed and for the cost of processing the transaction, it would take a handsome fee -- for example, 2% to 3% per month on the amount it spends for the goods.
As Bristol was getting started in the spring of 1988, a frustrated Rucker was still searching for ways to finance his foreign deals. Disgusted by now with commercial banks, he hired a college intern to put together an application for a loan guarantee from the U.S. Export-Import Bank. The intern had read a few articles about the start-up of Bristol International and called for advice. She received a surprisingly warm reception. "A woman from the Department of Commerce had told me about Rucker back in 1986," says Waldkoetter. "She said, 'Here's a guy to be on the lookout for.' "
Waldkoetter proposed to Rucker that they talk. "Ididn't want to talk with these guys," says Rucker. "I had the worst attitude. I wasn't going to Dallas for any meeting and especially not to see any banker. I was collateralized to the hilt and I didn't see what they could do for me." But Bristol wasn't put off. "Rucker was typical," says Fozdar. "He had a need for financing, but he had reached all the dead ends and was frustrated."
What impressed the merchant bankers most about Rucker when they met him at Tracom's offices was his progress in tracking the location of old parts and engines around the country. "He was building access to an inventory of products that he didn't have to buy until he had a sale," says Fozdar. "He knew where the product was. It was the process by which you take what has been a local market and create a national or international market by establishing an information network. He was trying to do that."
A deal with the Export-Import Bank didn't look promising, so the partners proposed that Rucker do a deal with them instead. After a week of due diligence, Waldkoetter called to say that everything looked good. Rucker had heard that line before, so he decided to test the merchant bankers: he asked for $50,000 right away to enable him to buy engines for a deal in Australia. That same day -- before any papers had been signed -- the money appeared in Tracom's account.
At the end of August 1988 Tracom employees packed 25 huge Detroit Diesel engines inside wooden crates. They wrapped the crates in metal bands to hold them together, then hoisted the crates into one big metal container on the top of a flatbed truck. With the shipping papers all completed, the truck pulled out of Tracom's lot.
On October 28, when payment arrived from Detco Australia, Tracom paid back its first loan from Bristol International. The loan cost Tracom $2,775, or about 19% on an annualized basis. A steep price, to be sure, but Rucker gets a better-than-average markup on his foreign deals.
More to the point, Rucker was happy to pay Bristol's price. Finally, he could get serious about growing his business abroad.
* * *
Bill Rucker steps outside the door to his house and surveys the area, a neighborhood of big new homes. He points to a house on his left. "That guy there is a representative to China for Bell Helicopter. That one next to him is the principal of a public school. A stockbroker lives there, and a guy who runs a title company over there. And then here I am, in the biggest house at the top of the hill, and what do I do? I sell junk." Rucker enjoys the possibility that his grimy engines share cargo ships to Europe with IBM computers.
"I'd like to add one big foreign customer each year," says Rucker. "When you're dealing internationally, you're dealing with people a cut above. It tends to raise you to their level. You have to be as professional as the $500-million company you're selling to. It's also helped me focus my business. I saw there was enough demand that I wouldn't have to branch out into anything else."
The export business has also given Rucker experiences he can't measure on a financial statement. "It's made me much more aware of world issues and broadened my horizons," he says. When his foreign customers visit his company in Fort Worth, they stay with Rucker, his wife, Laura, and their eight-year-old daughter, Erin. "I'm trying to learn a lot about the cultures of the countries where I'm doing business."
Rucker has found that demand for American goods is strong. "The biggest complaint I find overseas is that Americans are not responsive. A lot of people do international sales only when business here is in the pits."
An exception is Tim Jordan. He wants to give up his one-man show in five years or so and build a company as Rucker has; his goal is to own a salvage yard for heavy trucks, but before he can do that he has to increase his cash, pursuing business aggressively wherever it is. Last summer, he found it where Rucker has -- overseas.
"I'd heard about some Mexicans staying in a motel on Interstate 35," says Jordan. "They came up here to buy truck parts. I went over there one morning at 7:30 and asked the lady behind the desk, are there any Mexicans or Guatemalans staying here? She says yes and gives me their room number.
"I knocked on their door and talked with them. They turned out to be Guatemalans. And we did a deal."
