Remember when you started your business? You had a great idea, high hopes and no money. If you were like Jeff Semple, you shined your shoes, put on your best suit and hit the streets in pursuit of capital.
“When I started my business at age 25, I had to be a good salesman and convince someone to loan me the money,” says Semple, president and CEO of Sempac Systems Inc. in Canton. “I told a banker that if I could just get $6,000, I could get this thing started. It was a short-term loan which I paid off in the first six months.”
Sempac is a manufacturer and distributor of coated papers and films for the industrial packaging, food processing, automotive, steel and screenprinting industries. At first, much of the company’s financing was accomplished through cash-flow management, credit lines and short-and long-term equipment loans. But rapid growth soon made conventional financing more complicated.
“It’s easy when you go from a couple hundred thousand to a million to 5 million, but when you jump from 5 million to 15 million, cash required becomes exponential,” says Semple.
Each year, the company has had to brainstorm new, creative ways of financing. At one point, Semple chose to grow by acquiring a second business. Since he already owned a majority of the first venture, Semple says it was just a matter of finding a way to use the existing assets of that company to acquire the balance of stock for the second.
Last year, Inc. magazine ranked Sempac No. 257 in the its list of the country’s fastest-growing companies. Sales, at the time, were about $4 million.
The company can be found online at www.sempac1.com.