Institutional
Investor Negotiations & Consulting
Quite
often a commercial bank will reject a loan application that comes through the
front door, but invest in a private placement of senior notes for
the very same
project when presented by an investment banker or mortgage banker. Sound
shocking? Well, there you have it. Different rules apply to
different situations. If your deal is structured to provide all of the
possible protections and benefits needed to support it in the market, then you
the basis for pursuing capital financing through an investment banker.
Investment
bankers only chase deals they can place without a lot of work because a true
investment banker understands the principle of the time value of money and they
won't waste time on money hunts that are not gut cinch winners.
What
does this mean to you?
Today's
savvy entrepreneur has to create a transaction structure that eliminates all the
reasons why an investor would reject a given deal. The sales pitch is
definitely the proverbial "elevator pitch". It has to make sense
in a very short period of time. It has to have a decent yield, but not
over the top because those deals have just as many problems because they are
determined to be, "too good to be true". It has to be easy for
the investor to say "yes" and it has to be easy for investors to make
adjustments.
More
specifically, if you think you are going to the investment banker route, then
you need to deal with the following specific issues: