Independent counter-expertise and critical review of credit proposals
For direct lending funds, merchant banks, and debt-investing family offices, we execute unbiased borrower due diligence: business plan stress-testing, collateral asset valuation, and protective covenant drafting.
Independent Underwriting · Credit Paper Review · Paris
A prudent institutional lender never relies exclusively on marketing memorandums prepared by the borrower's sell-side advisor. Impartial counter-expertise, free from closing fee incentives, is mandatory.
Forecast Bias Detection
Rigorously verifying forward EBITDA assumptions, identifying accounting adjustments, and recalibrating terminal exit multiples.
Collateral Enforceability & Priority
Analyzing true legal ranks, liquidation valuations of security packages, and cross-border intercreditor subordination mechanics.
Unbiased credit evaluation of loan proposals and transaction datarooms
Safeguarding institutional creditor capital
Our independent underwriting mandates provide credit committees with unvarnished, objective insights into the commercial and structural viability of borrower proposals.
We deliver tailored recommendations on financial covenants (leverage testing, minimum liquidity covenants, cash sweep thresholds) to enforce debt service continuity through economic downcycles.
« The role of the underwriter is not to obstruct financing, but to guarantee the lender is adequately compensated for the true risk undertaken. »
Four counter-expertise focus areas for credit committees
Our underwriting framework audits every core component of the transaction prior to capital commitment.
Business Plan Consistency
Cross-referencing projected growth rates against audited historicals and sector peer benchmarks.
Collateral & Security Review
Verifying mortgage registration ranks, validity of share pledges, and negative pledge covenant enforceability.
Covenant Architecture
Setting covenant headroom margins, remediation cure periods, and automatic excess cash flow sweeps.
Payment Waterfall Hierarchy
Sequencing cash flows across senior secured facilities, unitranches, mezzanine notes, and equity distributions.
Our four-stage independent underwriting workflow
Une exécution rythmée par des critères stricts de qualification et de structuration financière.
Dataroom Intake & Preliminary Review
Analyzing borrower information memorandums, financial acquisition models, and vendor due diligence reports.
Management & Advisor Q&A
Conducting structured adversarial questioning with borrower executive leadership and financial advisors.
Independent Stress Modeling
Rebuilding projected cash flows under conservative lender-tailored macroeconomic downside assumptions.
Credit Opinion Delivery
Delivering an executive Credit Committee Note complete with recommended contractual protective covenants.
Complementary expertise areas
Hipparchus Credit Assessment
Our proprietary corporate credit risk evaluation and scoring framework.
Transaction Structuring
Independent advisory for intercreditor agreements and documentation negotiations.
Asset-Backed Lending
Leveraging tangible balance sheet assets to establish resilient collateral packages.