Transaction Quality

What Determines a Good Transaction

Not every project that could be financed should be financed. Some projects fail because of poor management. Others fail because of structural market changes that were foreseeable but not anticipated in the original analysis. Others fail because of genuine bad luck, force majeure events, regulatory changes, or macroeconomic shocks that no amount of diligence could have predicted. The goal of our due diligence process is to eliminate the avoidable failures and accept only residual risks that are genuinely outside our control and appropriately compensated in the return profile of the transaction.

The transactions we present on this page share a common characteristic: they closed. That means they passed our due diligence process, attracted the required capital from our lender and investor network, completed legal documentation, and reached drawdown. Closing is harder than it sounds. Many transactions that appear viable at origination encounter problems during due diligence, structuring, or syndication that prevent them from reaching close. The fact that these transactions closed is a reflection of their underlying quality and our ability to manage the process effectively.

We are selective in publishing transaction details, for two reasons. First, many of our clients value confidentiality and have not consented to public disclosure of their financing arrangements. Second, we would rather present a smaller number of genuinely representative transactions than create the impression of breadth by including transactions that do not meet our quality standards. Every transaction on this page is one that we would be comfortable recommending to a potential investor or lender as an example of our work at its best.

Deal Origination

How We Source the Transactions We Close

Deal origination is the lifeblood of our business. Without a consistent pipeline of quality transactions, there is nothing to arrange, nothing to syndicate, and nothing for our fund investors to participate in. We invest significant resource in origination, through direct relationships with project sponsors and corporate borrowers, through our networks of development finance institutions and government agencies, through referrals from legal firms and financial advisers who know our capabilities, and through the reputation we have built over years of successful transaction execution.

Inbound origination, transactions brought to us by external parties, accounts for a significant portion of our pipeline. Our reputation and the presence of this website mean that project sponsors and borrowers find their way to us without us always having to seek them out. However, we also conduct proactive outbound origination, identifying sectors and geographies where our capabilities can add value and approaching potential clients directly. This proactive origination is particularly important in markets where our track record is less established, and where building awareness requires direct engagement.

Referral relationships with legal firms, accounting practices, and sector specialists are among our most productive origination channels. Professionals who have worked with us on previous transactions understand the quality of what we do and the types of transactions where we add the most value. When they encounter a client who needs what we offer, they make the introduction with confidence. We invest in these referral relationships through regular dialogue, transparent and prompt processing of introduced transactions, and appropriate recognition of introductions that lead to closed transactions.

Transaction quality screening happens at origination, not after significant internal resource has been invested. We apply a rapid initial assessment to every transaction that comes through our pipeline, identifying the key risk factors and strategic fit considerations within days of first contact. This front-loading of quality assessment avoids the waste of detailed due diligence on transactions that should have been screened out earlier, and it allows us to respond quickly to potential clients with a clear indication of whether we are likely to be the right partner for their transaction.