Neil Matthews is the founding director of Speed Chills (www.speedchills.com), a travel/ticket agent and hospitality supplier for fans looking to travel to motorsport events. Speed Chills sold more beer at Le Mans than all the other UK-based hospitality suppliers put together this year!
The currencies the company deals in are dictated by the events they are hosting, but buying and selling in Euros and US dollars is a regular occurrence.
“The weak Pound has obviously made it more expensive for us to buy from suppliers in Euros – and therefore more expensive for our clients who are going to the Eurozone,” Matthews explains.
In the past, the company has worked with a few currency specialists, but on an ad hoc basis. “We put as little as possible through our bank, as the costs were too high,” he confirms.
At the beginning of the year, Speed Chills took out a long-term contract with Foreign Currency Direct (FCD). Says Matthews: “We have to pay accommodation providers, airline partners and cross channel ferries, race organizers for tickets, and we have costs for hospitality such as marquees and artisan produce suppliers for our catering.
“We’ve had to be effective in our currency dealings to minimize the impact of the weak Pound. It’s great to have someone keeping an eye on that aspect of the business while we focus on giving our clients the best possible experience.
“Moving from a reactive to a proactive relationship has paid dividends,” Matthews continues. “FCD will actively contact us when the time is right to execute a deal in a particular currency. It’s hard to put an exact figure on how much we’ve saved – but managing our foreign currency exchange effectively has meant that we have not had to put any of our prices up this year, in contrast to most of our competitors. This has given us a real competitive advantage and we've definitely won more business as a result.”
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