Debt Advisory
Credit facilities, prepared to the standard diligence will demand.
Our clients are founders, families and sponsors raising senior secured, asset-based, acquisition and junior capital. Lenders are approached as a group rather than in sequence, and nothing goes out until the credit holds up under the same scrutiny a committee will apply.
Start a conversationSOLUTIONS
The instrument follows the cash flow and the collateral, not the other way round.
The structure is derived from the cash flow and the assets that support it, not imposed on them. A business that repays from earnings carries a cash-flow facility, one that repays from the conversion of assets carries something backed by a borrowing base. The instrument is the consequence of where the repayment actually comes from.
Senior Secured & Term Loans
First lien on the assets and the lowest cost of the placed capital. Sized against cash flow, with amortization set to what the business can carry rather than to a template.
Unitranche & Private Credit
Senior and junior collapsed into a single facility from one lender, at a blended rate. The tranching is settled privately between lenders rather than becoming the borrower's problem.
Mezzanine & Junior Capital
Subordinated debt that sits behind the senior lender, often with a PIK component or warrants attached. Used where the senior facility alone will not reach the quantum and the alternative is dilution.
Asset-Based Lending (ABL)
Advances against receivables and inventory, sized by a borrowing base rather than by earnings. Frequently available where a cash-flow facility is not, including to businesses running thin margins or a loss.
Acquisition & Growth Financing
Debt raised against a specific transaction or expansion, structured around pro forma performance rather than trailing results. The financing question is answered alongside the deal rather than after it.
Refinancing & Repricing
Replacing a facility that no longer reflects the business, whether the driver is an approaching maturity, terms set when the company was smaller, or a covenant package that has stopped fitting.
PROCESS
How a mandate runs.
Five phases, applied the same way every time. The structure is fixed and the judgment inside it belongs to the deal.
1. Assessment
Before anything is committed, we read the credit the way a lender will. Where repayment comes from, what secures it, what already ranks ahead of a new facility, and what leverage and coverage look like once it is in place. We give a view on whether it places and roughly on what terms before an engagement is signed.
2. Preparation
The credit is built for the audience that underwrites it rather than for a board. A model that can be stressed rather than only projected, an earnings bridge with evidence behind every adjustment, collateral documented and valued, and a data room assembled before diligence asks for it.
3. Lender Selection
A shortlist drawn against the credit profile rather than against a contact list. Sector, facility size, structure and position in the stack all narrow the field. Appetite is confirmed in conversation before anything is formally circulated, so the credit is never shopped, and lenders are judged on how reliably they close rather than on the spread they quote.
4. Term Sheets
Parties run in parallel so terms are compared rather than accepted. Economics and protections are negotiated together, since the earnings definition, covenant cushion, permitted debt and guarantee scope frequently matter more than the coupon. Flexibility lives in the definitions.
5. Documentation and Close
Credit agreement, security package, intercreditor arrangements where junior capital sits behind senior, and fee letters. Private credit documentation is written for each deal rather than pulled from a template, so the drafting is a workstream in its own right. Conditions precedent are cleared and funds flow.
LENDER NETWORK
Access to capital that does not advertise.
The lower middle market is served predominantly by non-bank capital, and that universe is fragmented. Private credit funds, family offices, specialty finance groups and asset-based lenders each operate within defined mandates governing sector, facility size, structure and position in the capital stack.
A credit that falls outside one group's remit often sits comfortably within another's. Most declines reflect a targeting failure rather than a credit failure.
Our partners have transacted with these groups for over two decades, in many cases directly with the principals who commit the capital. That access determines both the pace of a process and the terms available within it.
Capital sources
- Private credit and direct lending funds
- Family offices with credit mandates
- Specialty finance and asset-based lenders
- Equipment finance and leasing groups
- Commercial banks and SBA lenders
- Mezzanine and junior capital providers
A credit committee is not a mystery to be guessed at. It asks the same questions in the same order, discounts the same adjustments, and declines for reasons that are usually visible weeks before anyone says them out loud.
Our partners spent their careers on that side, originating and underwriting facilities inside institutional lenders before advising the borrowers who now sit across from them. Twenty-five years of it at Silicon Valley Bank and J.P. Morgan, alongside four decades in boutique banking.
It means we are not learning what a lender wants from the lender. We know before the conversation starts.