News & Insights

Fund Finance Partners (FFP) is pleased to announce that Anastasia Kaup has joined the firm as a Partner in Chicago. Anastasia’s arrival adds to the firm’s depth of expertise and experience, and amplifies the team’s decades-long presence in the fund finance ecosystem.

Once unimpeachable, subscription finance sustained its first meaningful setback in February following the first widely-reported loss in connection with a U.S. subscription facility. The lender blames fraudulent subscription agreements – the ultimate repayment source. Fund sponsors, investors and lenders await the impact to their respective businesses. Fun Finance Partners is defending subscription finance’s integrity by enhancing due diligence and introducing innovative loss-mitigation solutions.

As 2020 began, the private debt community was looking forward to an unprecedented 11th year of expansion and opportunity since the global financial crisis. The public health and economic crises that permeated every aspect of life during 2020 evaded even the most prescient in our industry. Although there were laudable success stories and capital formation achievements, perhaps the most lasting impact to our private debt industry will be the lessons learned in balance sheet management.

ESG has been written about extensively (especially among advisory firms). FFP’s angle is unique in that operating companies, whether founder-owned or even sponsored by lower middle market private equity funds, may nevertheless find their prospects in the private capital markets success impacted by ESG factors and considerations important to those capital providers. FFP has the playbook through which entrepreneurial, founder-owned or emerging equity sponsor-backed business can use ESG principals that apply to large private equity and private credit funds, to improve their value proposition.

Emerging from the pandemic, private fund CFOs face number challenges, but thankfully CFOs have more financing tools at their disposal in 2021 than ever before.

 

In Private Equity International’s latest magazine, FFP co-founder, Zac Barnett, takes an in-depth look at these tools, including subscription, NAV, hybrid, management company and general partner financings, along with non-traditional, insurance company lender facilities, and explains how the varying solutions benefit LPs, asset management platforms and principals.

Every year, Private Debt Investor spotlights individuals under 40 who have demonstrated noteworthy leadership and innovation in the private debt industry. We are thrilled to announce that FFP’s Co-Founder, Richard Wheelahan, has been chosen as one of PDI’s 2020 Rising Stars. His dedication to FFP’s clients and the asset management industry has certainly made an impact on private debt’s evolution, and we’re proud he’s part of FFP!

In this recent FFP Alert we discuss the current variance in potential subscription financing outcomes for our sponsor constituency and thank all of our clients for helping us acquire these valuable insights.

New lending is happening, but it’s a different world out there for some, and you may find yourself looking for a new bank. In Buyouts Magazine’s latest edition, FFP’s co-founder Zac Barnett and other industry experts weigh in with their advice on getting subscription financing in the new environment. To read the full article, “A borrower’s guide to an unmappable landscape” go to page 26. 

The fund manager is seeking to hold large loans and then wait for the syndication market to recover before selling them.

In the recent video version of Cadwalader’s Fund Finance Friday: Industry Conversations, Mike Mascia of Cadwalader covers off the Fund Finance legal updates occurring over the past two weeks. We’d like to thank Cadwalader and Mike Mascia for including FFP’s Co-founder and Managing Partner, Zac Barnett, in this conversation about fund finance activity levels, the market segments where FFP is looking for lenders to finance prospective transactions, and our forecasts and predictions for the remainder of the year and beyond.

In the final chapter of Graham Bippart’s feature on the subscription credit line market it extemporizes on the notion, proposed by market participants that A) there is indeed now a supply/demand imbalance in the sub line market, and B) that the underlying causes represent a pre-existing condition; the pandemic only served as a catalytic agent. It’s a notion not everyone agrees with, but nonetheless warrants consideration.

An unusual occurrence in the $800 billion market for collateralised loan obligations is stirring concerns about the health of the broader credit markets, writes Robin Blumenthal.

In part three of “The shifting landscape for subscription credit”, Graham Bippart deals with real credit concerns for some sub line lenders, despite almost pristine credit performance in the sector, so far. It then looks at the ways in which lenders are trying to mitigate or hedge against those concerns, including NAV covenants, LP skin in the game via minimum-called capital requirements and looking at assets as potential secondary sources of repayments.

In October, Fund Finance Partners published a comprehensive primer on management company lines, or credit facilities extended to investment advisers and fund management companies (“ManCo Lines”).  As FFP’s partners update this ManCo Line primer from our respective home offices, much has changed since October; ManCo lines being no exception.

Thanks to Graham Bippart at Private Funds CFO magazine for including FFP in its June cover story on NAV credit facilities. These facilities have become an important, much needed liquidity source for private equity funds looking to maintain value.

Assuming activity in all lending spheres has fallen off given the pandemic? Think again. Net Asset Value loans and preferred equity transactions have reached record volume. In Private Funds CFO’s latest article, Graham Bippart speaks with FFP co-founder Zac Barnett, and other industry experts, to discuss the rise of NAV lending and how saavy GPs are utilizing them.

As consistently as fund finance has grown, the economic and financial markets’ ripple effects of CV19 have discarded the status quo.  We are regularly discussing those changes with Private Equity International and Private Debt Investor, and as published last week, there are three key changes that the pandemic has brought about, which affect borrowers, lenders and investors, alike.

We are all doing our best to adapt to the disruption caused by Covid-19 (“Coronavirus”). In our latest article, we at FFP thought it may be helpful to share some of the recent views and opinions expressed by our colleagues and friends across the fund finance and broader private equity markets.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, followed by the ensuing dramatic social and economic isolation meant to contain it, the entire economy is showing its first signs of widespread contraction in over a decade.  In this article FFP focuses on how this economic slowdown, which severely impacts corporate earnings and liquidity, is impacting the ability of Debt Funds that have, over the course of the past decade, increasingly met their financing needs, to continue to do so.

Fund Finance Partners’ co-founders, Zac Barnett and Richard Wheelahan, spoke with PEI’s Alex Lynn about the coronavirus / covid-19 and its impact on subscription facilities, fund finance and the broader private equity markets.

Sponsors are under more and more scrutiny with respect to conflicts of interest in the fund finance space. In FFP’s latest thought piece we discuss how several are working to mitigate them.

Fund Finance Partners’ co-founders, Zac Barnett and Richard Wheelahan, spoke with PEI’s Alex Lynn about their interest in fund finance, specifically private fund sponsors’ burgeoning use of uncommitted subscription facilities.

There are more debt finance solutions for BDCs than ever before.  Regulatory relief now permits BDCs to use greater leverage; a robust credit market means there are more debt products within reach.  This is the time for BDCs to optimize asset-level financing strategies.

A child’s self-esteem is tied, in large part, to how they are treated, valued and cared for by their parents. If we spend too much time “giving time” to everything else in our lives ahead of our children, we are teaching them that they are less important to us — and therefore the greater world. In this interview, Zac Barnett discusses strategies to create more space in our lives in order to give our children more quality attention.

Umbrella Facilities are an aggregation of multiple subscription-backed credit lines, for the same asset manager, benefiting multiple investment vehicles, under one set of documents, in a single transaction. We have been directly involved in the evolution of these facilities for well over a decade.  Given their resurgence and the frequency with which we’re contacted by asset managers looking for a financing solution like an Umbrella Facility, we are publishing this white paper to summarize their structure, identify their pros and cons and proffer an explanation as to why the demand for Umbrella Facilities has recently spiked.

Private equity investors allocated a lot of capital to CRE debt plays over the past few years. That trend has been slowing of late.

How does governance come into play for institutional asset managers. One key area is how leverage is managed, according to Richard Wheelahan, III, and Zac Barnett, the Co-Founders of Fund Finance Partners.

FFF this week got hold of Zac Barnett and Richard Wheelahan, who last week announced the founding of Fund Finance Partners. Here is our conversation.

As fund finance product evolution continues to chase the rapid specialization and growth of the asset management industry, fund sponsors and asset management firms (each a “Sponsor”) are taking advantage of management company lines of credit (each a “MC line”). We at FFP view MC lines as an essential tool for Sponsor growth, operational flexibility and principal retention in your increasingly competitive industry.

Despite many media reports and articles to the contrary, fund sponsors should not be apologizing to their investors for availing themselves of the many advantages of a subscription-backed credit facility. It is true that the origin of these facilities centered around the mere bridging of capital calls but there are numerous other advantages and fund sponsors should consider a more full-throated defense of their strategic value. There are reasons why they have become an essential tool in the CFO’s toolbox and those advantages should be brought to light.

CHICAGO, IL – October 2, 2019 /PRNewswire/– Fund Finance Partners (FFP) today announced the launch of their new fund advisory business. FFP co-founders Zac Barnett and Richard Wheelahan bring a combined 35+ years of direct experience in the fund finance space.