borrower advisory

A commercial printer owns $3.6 million of appraised equipment and can borrow $600,000 on last year's earnings. A sale-leaseback on the same presses raises $2.7 million, at $69,800 a month and $650,000 of total cost.

A family owes $7.6 million of estate tax nine months after the founder's death, with $1.5 million of cash and a $30 million manufacturer. Selling a stake under the deadline gives up $9.4 million of value. Financing costs $1.68 million.

A trucking company is marketed at $4.0 million of adjusted EBITDA. The lender accepts $3.4 million, which cuts the debt available by $1.8 million and raises the equity the buyer has to write by the same amount, after the price is agreed.

A $10 million ARR software company adds $2 million of new ARR. From its largest customer, that lifts borrowing capacity by $240,000. From two new customers, the same ARR lifts it by $1.44 million, six times as much.

A $60 million hardware reseller closed an asset-based line on an $8.30 million borrowing base. The first field exam tested the same collateral and found $6.88 million, and planned headroom of $1.80 million fell to $382,000.

A $24 million holiday goods distributor ties up $9.74 million in receivables and inventory at the end of October, against $6.8 million on an average month. A credit line sized on the average runs out in August and is $2.94 million short at the peak.

A ten-year-old excavator at half the price of a new one needs $16,000 more at closing and $467 more a month. Older equipment finances on shorter terms against lower appraisals, and the listed price shows neither.

A buy-sell agreement settles who can trigger a sale and exactly what the shares are worth. It usually settles funding in one sentence naming life insurance, which pays on only one of the five events that can fire it.

Acquisition leverage has recovered to roughly where it stood at the 2021 peak. On platform deals the senior layer has not, and the gap was filled by junior capital, which is not the pool most buyers approach first.

A term loan is sized once and never changes. A committed facility against recurring revenue is sized as a multiple of monthly revenue, and availability rises as that revenue rises, without a second underwriting.

Advance rate is the number every borrower asks about and the last one applied. Before it touches anything, the ineligibles come out, and on a $6 million receivables ledger they can remove $2.2 million without a single invoice being bad.

Customers moved from net 30 to net 60, which tied up an extra $1.08 million. The consequence shows up on the other side of the business, where $162,000 of supplier discounts go unclaimed every year because the cash is not there.

July set an all-time monthly record in equipment finance, and the coverage credited AI capital expenditure. Small-ticket volume set its own record in the same month, up 84.5 percent, and that is the segment mid-market borrowers actually borrow in.

Two facilities quoted 75 basis points apart. Once field exams, appraisals, collateral monitoring and the finance team's own hours are counted, the cheaper-looking one costs 82 basis points more to run. The gap reverses entirely.

A manufacturer finances equipment and receivables while its largest asset sits untouched, carried at a depreciated book value that hides what it is worth. Two routes convert it to cash, and only one of them is a loan.

A buyer models an acquisition as price minus debt equals equity. Then the working capital true-up lands, and the seasonal build after it. The cash required is the same whichever month the deal closes, and the acquisition facility funds none of it.

Three United States public companies disclosed covenant amendments in 2026. Every creditor group said yes. One got a conditional bridge of a few months, another two years, a third nearly three. The breach severity is not what separated them.

Two recurring-revenue companies each report $6.0 million of ARR. One is offered a $2.0 million facility and the other $1.0 million. The difference is contract length, and it does not appear in any metric either company reports.

July brought the first contraction in commercial and industrial balances all year, at minus 1.1 percent annualized. Over the same stretch, lending to non-bank financial institutions reached $2,016.1 billion, up 20.4 percent.

A practice buys imaging and operatory chairs in the same quarter. One faces obsolescence in five years, the other runs fifteen. Financing both on a single term loses money at both ends.

Nearly eight in ten buyers expect to fund an acquisition through one government-guaranteed program, and ninety percent expect a seller note that only twenty-nine percent of owners plan to write.

Asset-based finance was estimated at more than $6.1 trillion on 2024 data and projected to reach $9.2 trillion by 2029. Inside it are mandates written for contracted and intangible cash flows rather than for hard assets.

Private shares trade below the last round price, and how far below depends on when that round was priced. A 2021 mark trades around 60 percent under. A 2025 mark trades around 1 percent under. What that costs an early holder.

July CPI came in exactly as forecast, both measures eased, and Treasury yields fell across the board. Futures still priced a 42 percent chance of a September hike. What that asymmetry is worth on a floating balance.

A ten-month job billing $100,000 a month withholds $100,000 by closeout. At builder margins near 11 percent that is almost the entire profit on the job, and a standard receivables facility gives you nothing against it.

Two buyers agree the same $18 million price for the same business. Depending on how the deferred consideration is structured, the cash the buyer needs at close is $9 million, $5 million, or $3 million. The price never changed.

Two principals began structuring on the same Monday. A $5 million facility against receivables closed in six weeks. A $30 million facility against mixed collateral took eighteen. Where the twelve extra weeks actually go.

The median interval from seed to Series A has stretched to roughly 2.2 years. A company that closed with 18 months of cash is eight months short before it does anything wrong. What the decision looks like at month 10 against month 16.

A distributor doing $40 million in revenue needs $6 million. Read against cash flow it is short. Read against its assets it clears. Read as a blend it borrows $8.2 million. Same company, same week, three answers.

Van spot rates ran 45.6 percent above a year ago in late July while diesel climbed 13.8 percent in four weeks. Both movements enlarge the cash a carrier funds before it gets paid. Why a better freight market consumes capital.

Second-quarter deals of $100 million or more rose 88 percent in value and 29 percent in volume, and the data that reports it does not count anything smaller. What that means for a buyer working a $5 to $50 million acquisition.

A net 25 percent of surveyed lenders narrowed spreads on middle-market loans last quarter, and six of eight tracked terms moved the borrower's way. Complex, regulated, and non-sponsor situations capture that only if the file fits the mandate.

Direct lending now rivals the syndicated market at $1.5 to $2 trillion, but the majority flows to sponsor-backed deals. Why non-sponsor owners get declined, and what closes the gap.

Capex demand is rising into a working capital squeeze. Why paying cash for equipment is the expensive move, and how layering the structure preserves the liquidity growth consumes.