We help you implement and renegotiate your bank lines. Working closely by your side, we strive to obtain the best possible terms and conditions, taking into account the market environment and your credit profile, always with the twin aims of minimizing execution risk and meeting your timeline.

Your challenges

  • You want to secure, strengthen or renew your committed liquidity.
  • You think that your credit facilities agreements are not flexible enough, you’re wondering if your financial conditions are attractive, you’re looking to structure your bank pool or adapt it to better match your side-business.
  • You want to finance or prefinance your growth or medium-term plans, such as capex or acquisitions.
  • You’re not sure whether to totally refinance your credit facilities, or reorganize and / or extend those that are already in place.
  • You wish to optimize your bank financing structure but don’t know whether to choose a syndicated credit / club deal or bilateral credit lines.
  • You want to restructure the multiple bilateral bank lines held by your subsidiaries into a single one centralized on the parent company.

Whatever your challenges and objectives, you have difficulty seeing how the banking market helps you meet them, or you want a view that is independent of that of your bank lenders regarding the amounts, as well as the terms and conditions, that you could achieve.

Indeed, even in an environment in which liquidity is abundant, we can see strong price differences between banking institutions in each of our transactions, fairly heterogeneous bank-to-bank positions, and very different requirements from a documentation perspective from one bank to another.

What we can offer you

Regardless of:

  • your credit profile (investment grade or non-investment grade)
  • your company profile (listed, private, family ownership, under LBO)
  • your situation (you’re looking for new money or additional liquidity, refinancing, or waiving your existing financing following a structural acquisition or a crisis)
  • your needs (liquidity, general corporate purpose, capex, M&A…)

Our commitment is clear: to support you, to provide efficiency and transparency, and to find a clear path through the asymmetry of information that companies regularly face in their dealings with an inefficient banking market.

Along the way, we help you:

    • prepare the best approach to adopt with your lenders and your negotiations with them. A successful transaction is a perfectly prepared transaction:
      • we work on your credit profile (highlighting your credit strengths and helping you anticipate issues that may be raised by the lenders)
      • where appropriate, we analyze your funding and / or committed liquidity needs
      • we develop an ambitious but realistic target term sheet
      • we help you set out the best tactics in your dealings with your lenders (formalizing your requests, choosing the best language to use).
    • in the management of all aspects until the process until the closing and signing:
      • proactive support in the bilateral negotiation of the terms and conditions with your lenders to align them with a final term sheet
      • coordination of all stakeholders
      • close management of the process’s timeline and ensuring all deadlines are met.

    From preparing for the consultation with lenders through to signing credit documentation, we have the tools, processes and teams in place to help you obtain the best possible terms and conditions, taking into account the market backdrop, your credit profile, the appetite of potential lenders, your need for flexibility, and the constraints specific to your business model and growth objectives.

    The unique methodology we propose can adapt to any context and any credit profile, to any financing purpose, and to any type of financing and format / structure (whether that be an RCF, term loan, refinancing, amend and extend, waiver, syndicated credit / club deal, bilateral lines, unsecured / secured, senior or subordinate).

Through our established processes, you:

    • are provided with an overall view of the market at a given time
    • can rely on our recommendations and proprietary analysis and decision tools (such as rating analysis, RAROC analysis, extraction tools, databases) so that you make decisions based on documented, comparable elements
    • retain bargaining power thanks to competition between banks, which enables all price conditions and main business legal terms to be negotiated with each potential lender to result in common terms and conditions
    • control execution risk at each stage of the arrangement of financing
    • optimize the relational approach (for example by taking into account rating specific to each bank, the side businesss, …).

    In short, together, we negotiate the best possible terms and conditions for you.

Our support and advice are based on our in-depth knowledge of the market and the latest trends (such as sustainable linked loans, crisis liquidity lines, etc). With an average of two closings per month, you’re guaranteed to benefit from the most up-to-date experience available.

Practical challenges faced by CFOs and treasurers today

By design as well as intent, there have been areas within the banking landscape that have remained obscure and complex over the years. Companies have struggled to effectively manage these areas, which often result in sub-optimal terms and a significant outflow of fees. Companies could easily overcome these situations if they took control of the process and if banks offered greater transparency.

Unfortunately, most companies continue to believe that their banks are always working in their best interests and that their advice is unbiased, independent and can be blindly relied upon. The reality is that banks have to work within limited confines of their business and risk environments, and their advice is often skewed in favor of what would pass the smell test in their respective organizations.

Credit agreement inclusion

A common clause included in most credit agreements relates to the banks having “no advisory or fiduciary relationship.” This implies that the borrower is capable of evaluating, understanding, and accepting the terms, risks, and conditions of the underlying transactions. Further, the agreement stipulates that the bank is acting solely as a principal and will not be acting as an advisor, agent, or fiduciary of the borrower. The agreement also states that the bank may be engaged in a broad range of contradictory transactions. Such transactions involve interests that differ from those of the borrower. Lastly, the agreement states that the banks do not have any obligation to disclose these conflicting interests.

This is contrary to what most companies believe about their banks working in their best interests. The banks advising the company are explicitly stating that they are not acting as advisors and that they are not responsible for disclosing any other conflicts of interest that drive them to advise the company in a specific direction.

Alignment of interest

Bank compensation is not aligned with the interest of the company but rather with the closing of the transaction. This drives banks to close transactions without considering how it might affect the company, be it now or in the future. Market flex is a perfect example where banks can unilaterally increase the rate of interest of a credit facility to make it more marketable to investors.

Borrowers unprepared or unaware of these practices are usually pushed into a corner at the last minute. Such borrowers are incapable of negotiating favorable terms, resulting in inflexible capital structures and higher costs of financing.

Nature of bank groups

A large banking group may mean adequate liquidity; however, the cost and terms of having this liquidity is often driven by one or two banks, which could mean higher costs and sub-optimal terms, even though most of the other banks in the group would be keen to offer better terms. Large investment banks will often need higher returns on capital, resulting in higher cost of financing for the borrower.

Term sheets through precedence

Companies that do not regularly access the markets usually depend on their lawyers to obtain term sheets of recent deals. This approach fails to consider the flexibility that some banks may be willing to offer due to several factors, including changing market dynamics and the discount for breaking into a new relationship. There are no precedents when it comes to financing, and everything is always up for negotiation.

Bank relationship profitability

Another underestimated area is the profitability of banking partners.

Profitability is the bank’s return on its risk-adjusted capital. It is typical for large global investment banks to have returns over 25%, which is usually achieved through mergers and acquisitions, and lead appointments on financing transactions while keeping minimum commitments in their books. In a large bank group, oftentimes commercial banks are not willing to sustain these large discrepancies in returns, especially when liquidity is hard to come by, which makes it imperative for CFOs and treasurers to ensure equitable distribution of their wallet for longer sustainability of their banking relationships.

Key considerations for a successful bank financing approach

  1. Build your own conviction on your credit standing and the implied profitability of your banks. This will enable you to have a clear view on your capacity to negotiate.
  2. Plan your financing months ahead of time, even if there is no immediate requirement. This will prevent you from giving in to last-minute inclusions by banks.
  3. Negotiate terms based on your specific business requirements.
  4. Always look for ways to have flexibility, which can offer multiple options in any given situation. Remember, there is no market practice when it comes to agreement terms. Everything is subject to negotiation if presented in the right manner. While lead banking relationships are determined by several factors, it would be prudent to negotiate pricing and terms with each bank within the bank group and converge the banks including the leads towards the most favorable terms.
  5. Finally, always drive towards having equitable share of wallet among the banks to ensure sustained liquidity and long-lasting bank relationships.

MANAGING A BANK GROUP?

Ask us how a RAROC analysis can help you more effectively allocate your banking wallet.

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