Where Venture Debt Sits in a Middle Market Stack
Read the capital structure from the top claim to the bottom and see why growth loans need a named purpose.
Writing · 30 articles
The writing, topic by topic
Everything published on this site, arranged under the ten topics it covers. Each topic has its own page with a short note on how I read that part of the market, and the glossary collects the terms the pieces rely on. Nothing here is a trade call.
Reading a Venture Debt Term Sheet Line by Line
An annotated pass through a growth loan offer in printed order, marking the three clauses worth a slow read.
Warrants in Venture Debt and What They Cost
Costing the equity kicker three separate ways, and why the third view is the one to bring to the negotiation.
When Early Stage Debt Beats Another Equity Round
Two founders at one fork, and why the right answer depends on what sits at the end of the money.
What an Early Stage Lender Reads in Board Decks
Starting from the money and working toward the vision, one slide at a time, with the questions each one raises.
Runway Before the First Institutional Round
Why dividing cash by burn answers the wrong question for a company still proving its first thesis.
Disciplined Underwriting in Private Credit, One File
One invented loan file, taken from first read to the bad year, with what each stage teaches.
Covenants That Still Matter in Private Credit
Seven lender protections, ordered by how much warning each one buys before trouble.
Unitranche Loans and the Intercreditor Question
Behind a single blended rate, a side contract splits who gets paid first and who decides.
Customer Concentration and the Middle Market Borrower
The anchor account that justifies a loan can sink it too. One invented supplier, two outcomes.
Why Middle Market Companies Borrow Differently
Same ratios, different world. How company size reshapes the lender, the paper and the security.
Owner Dependence in a Middle Market Credit
A working set of questions for the credit where the founder and the company are hard to tell apart.
Distressed Credit, Value or Value Trap
Five questions that decide whether a fallen bond is cheap or simply still falling.
The Fulcrum Security and Where Recovery Lands
Why the class that is only partly covered ends up with the shares, the board and the plan.
Liquidity Runway in a Stressed Balance Sheet
Reading a troubled company one column at a time, from payroll Friday to the far horizon.
Call Schedules and the Hidden Cap on High Yield
The redemption table buried in the indenture decides how much a bondholder can ever make.
Reading a High Yield Indenture Before the Price
Definitions, baskets, unrestricted subsidiaries and amendment votes, read in the sequence they appear.
High Yield Research When Rates Stay Higher
Notes for someone new to the job on reading issuers once cheap refinancing is no longer assured.
Fiber Overbuild and the Incumbent Credit
A rival network on the same block changes the credit question from share to the price of holding customers.
Spectrum as Collateral and Why It Is Hard
The airwaves are worth a fortune and nearly impossible to foreclose on. How a careful lender squares that.
Three Lenses for Reading a Telecom Balance Sheet
Free cash after network spending, what the physical plant is worth, and what a nearby merger changes.
Data Center Load and Utility Balance Sheets
Why the biggest new customer a utility has ever had starts out as a claim on its borrowing capacity.
Tower Leases as a Credit Story
Reading a wireless site lease clause by clause, and finding the one risk its drafters could not write out.
Utility Capital Plans and the Credit That Funds Them
Every dollar in a utility spending program comes from somewhere. Follow each source to find the real ceiling.
A Credit Model That Starts With Cash
Nine lines, built in order, from the customer's payment to the lender's coupon.
What Equity Research Teaches a Credit Analyst
Stock analyst instincts, turned upside down, make a sharper reader of bonds and loans.
Questions for Management That Change a Credit View
The management meeting is worth taking only if an answer could move the lending decision.
Active Management in Dislocated Markets, Scored
A scorecard for when paying a manager beats owning the index, and when it plainly does not.
Contrarian Positioning Without the Hero Story
Three fair objections to leaning against the crowd, each answered with sizing and a written exit test.
Position Sizing When You Might Be Wrong
How much to own, worked through secured loans, cheap bonds, private stakes and hidden overlaps.