A senior banker on every deal, from the first call to the close.
The lender package in 1 day once the documents are in. At least 7 days by hand.
Nothing goes to a lender without your approval, and no lender learns your name until you approve it.
The purchase price is one use of capital
Acquire
Purchase consideration and required debt payoffs
Close
Transaction costs and financing fees
Operate
Opening cash, working capital and planned investment
Fund
Buyer equity + senior and junior debt + agreed seller financing
The sources must cover every use. A seller note is subject to the senior lender’s requirements; it does not automatically replace buyer equity.
The financing decision
For companies with $10M to $100M+ in revenue.
A structure built around your business.
Acquisition financing combines debt and equity to buy an established company. For a business with $10M to $100M+ in revenue, the debt is usually a senior term loan or a unitranche facility, often with a revolver for working capital, and sometimes a seller note or a junior layer. Lenders size it on the earnings that will remain under new ownership, the buyer’s equity and track record, and the cash left after closing. We bring those pieces into one model, including fees and post-close liquidity, before any lender sees the deal.
Before the file goes to market
We reconcile seller adjustments to supporting records and account for the cost of running the business after closing. Replacement management, rent changes and recurring capital spending can materially change the cash available for debt payments.
The sources-and-uses model includes buyer cash, loans, seller financing, rollover equity, payoffs and fees. We identify unsupported assumptions early, including equity that is not yet committed and seller-note terms a lender may not accept.
Payroll and supplier bills continue after the purchase. We model collection timing, the working-capital peg and the seasonal low point so the financing request includes a defensible operating cushion.
Compare the structures
Where it can fit
A purchase the target’s recurring cash flow supports on its own, from a bank or a private-credit lender, with the equity and leverage the lender requires.
What to examine
Compare amortization, covenant headroom, guarantees and the cost of an early exit alongside the rate.
Where it can fit
One facility that blends senior and junior risk, for a deal that needs more leverage or a simpler structure than bank debt with a junior layer.
What to examine
Price, call protection and any first-out/last-out split matter as much as the headline leverage.
Where it can fit
The seller carries part of the price or keeps a stake, narrowing the gap between the price and what lenders will fund.
What to examine
The senior lender sets the note’s subordination, payment limits and standby terms. Rollover changes who owns what after closing.
Where it can fit
A junior layer where the senior lender permits it and the combined debt service stays supportable.
What to examine
Higher cost, PIK interest, warrants and intercreditor terms can change the economics for the owners.
Where it can fit
The acquired business needs recurring liquidity against its cash cycle or eligible assets.
What to examine
Model opening availability after any closing draw. A commitment that is fully used on day one provides little operating room.
Structures depend on the business, transaction and lender requirements. OCC: Leveraged Lending handbook
Why run a process
Save on time and costs.
Once the documents are in, software builds the financing model, the lender presentation and the blind teaser in a day; by hand the same package takes at least a week. A senior banker checks every page, so you are not paying for analyst hours. Lenders that fit see the teaser first, and you approve each one by name before it learns who you are. Your banker compares the term sheets and negotiates to close.
These documents move the work forward. You can start the conversation before the file is complete; your banker tells you what is missing.
A confidential first conversation: what the capital is for, and what the package will need.
Before you start
Go deeper
It is the first page lenders read, and it is where acquisition financings quietly go wrong: a line that was never in the table turns up at closing and has to be paid for by somebody.
In most lower-middle-market acquisitions the quality of earnings report is where the EBITDA the loan is sized on gets settled. Knowing what lenders want from it decides when to commission it and what it has to prove.
An independent sponsor finds the deal and raises the equity for it one deal at a time. Lenders will finance that model, but their first question is always the same: is the equity real?
Once a company starts buying others, the lender stops underwriting one business and starts underwriting a group. The combined figures have to be built in a way a lender can check, and the credit agreement has to leave room for the next deal.
The seller usually keeps the cash. The payroll, the supplier terms and the slow month are yours from the first day. Size them before you size the financing.
Senior lenders will let a seller note be paid while their loan is outstanding, but only on their terms. A seller who first reads those terms at closing can reopen the whole deal.
A confidential first conversation about a refinancing, an acquisition, growth capital or a sale.