Britt Terrell will moderate a panel of finance professionals consisting of Brett Crabtree, Oxford Finance, Benjamin Hom, St. Cloud Capital, David Ring, Zoab Capital, and John Stuart, Full Circle Capital. The focus of the panel with be the challenges in Lower Middle Market Debt Finance. This event is hosted and sponsored by Greenberg Traurig LLP, and co-sponsored by Avant Advisory Group, PNC, TriNet, Duff & Phelps, Marcum, GemCap Solutions and Sapient Investigations.
Challenges in lower middle market debt finance are usually characterized by thin capital structures without a significant sponsor, lenders concerned about the wherewithal of smaller businesses to survive market challenges, B management teams, and lenders needing higher returns to compensate for small deals and perceived higher risk. Asset Based Lenders (ABL), senior debt unitranche, as well as 2nd lien/mezzanine, and debt structures that require partial equity returns (warrants and preferred structures). Focus is on acquisition financing, refinancing, and to some degree dividend recaps for debt transactions below $7M. Debt capital is very robust at this time for larger, high performing businesses, however, the small business with moderate performance has to work hard to get their financings completed. Discussion will include recently closed case studies.