We provide lender-ready capital raise packaging and debt or equity placement support for business owners and buyers looking to secure serious term sheets and close funding on a defined timeline.
For business owners and acquirers pursuing private debt or equity, submit your deal for review. We revert within one working day with next steps and either a quote for our services.
For pre-submission discussions, we offer paid consultations. To initiate underwriting and lender outreach, submit the deal.
Clients who object to a retainer usually do not misunderstand pricing. They misunderstand the nature of the work. Structured finance is not a casual referral business, and it is not a case of sending a few emails to banks and hoping someone bites. It is a technical execution process involving underwriting preparation, transaction architecture, document curation, compliance screening, lender positioning, and market sequencing. If that groundwork is not done properly, the file is not market-ready, the lender conversation starts badly, and the mandate often dies before it has even been evaluated.
That is why the retainer sits at the front of the engagement. It is the commercial mechanism through which the advisory team is engaged, internal resources are allocated, professional time is ring-fenced, and the file is prepared to a standard lenders will actually review. Serious borrowers, sponsors, and operators budget for this. Parties who do not are usually not ready, not authorised, not funded, or not serious enough to take a financing process through to closing.
A structured finance retainer covers the real work that happens before any credible lender introduction: mandate review, financial analysis, transaction risk scoring, data-room assembly, underwriting preparation, deal packaging, structuring logic, lender mapping, and execution support. Lenders want a ready file. They do not want confusion, missing documents, vague numbers, or a borrower who expects third parties to absorb the cost of preparing a multi-million-dollar financing.
In this context, structured finance means arranging capital against a defined transaction, asset pool, acquisition, project, contract flow, receivables base, or operating cash flow profile rather than simply asking a bank for a general corporate loan. The capital stack may include senior debt, mezzanine debt, preferred equity, subordinated capital, credit enhancement, guarantees, reserve accounts, escrow controls, security trustees, intercreditor mechanics, or SPV ring-fencing depending on the deal.
Advisory firms do not usually lend their own balance sheet. Placement agents do not act as the lender. Investment banks, despite the name, are generally financial intermediaries and advisors. They advise on capital raising, M&A, restructuring, or securities placement. They are not a walk-in deposit bank that approves your loan and wires funds because you asked. That distinction matters because many objections to retainers come from parties who expect an advisor to behave like a direct lender while also taking full execution risk for free.
| Term | Meaning In Practice |
|---|---|
| Advisory Firm | A firm engaged to analyse, structure, package, and present a financing transaction to lenders or investors. It is not usually the capital provider itself. |
| Placement Agent | An intermediary that places a financing opportunity with lenders, debt funds, family offices, or institutional investors whose mandate matches the transaction profile. |
| Investment Bank | A financial intermediary that advises on capital raising, M&A, restructurings, and securities offerings. The term does not mean a bank that invests its own money into every file it reviews. |
| Deal Underwriting | The analytical process used to evaluate creditworthiness, repayment capacity, downside protection, cash flow resilience, sponsor support, and transaction risk. |
| Deal Packaging | The preparation of the memorandum, financial model, key assumptions, use of funds analysis, risk summary, document index, and transaction narrative a lender needs to review the file. |
| Deal Structuring | The design of the financing architecture including tenor, amortisation, pricing logic, collateral, covenants, reserves, guarantees, waterfalls, and security controls. |
| Risk Scoring | The internal assessment of risk factors such as sponsor quality, jurisdiction, leverage, collateral coverage, counterparty quality, contract enforceability, and exit visibility. |
| SPV | A special purpose vehicle created to isolate assets, liabilities, receivables, or a project from the sponsor’s wider corporate balance sheet. Often used in project finance, securitization, and asset-backed structures. |
| Lender-Ready File | A file that contains a coherent transaction summary, credible numbers, complete documentation, compliance support, and a structure that a lender can underwrite without guessing what the borrower means. |
| Capital Stack | The layered mix of funding sources in a transaction, such as sponsor equity, senior debt, mezzanine capital, preferred equity, and sometimes guarantees or subordinated notes. |
The retainer is not a tip, a reservation token, or a symbolic show of goodwill. It is the fee that funds the advisory work itself. In structured finance, the heavy lifting starts before the market sees the deal. Files arrive with missing contracts, weak assumptions, inconsistent numbers, unrealistic leverage expectations, no clear repayment logic, and no credible lender positioning. That is precisely why the advisory mandate exists.
Initial review of the transaction, sponsor profile, use of funds, security position, capital gap, timeline, and bankability issues before resources are deployed further.
Review of financial statements, management accounts, acquisition documents, offtake contracts, EPC agreements, leases, receivables schedules, debt schedules, and supporting diligence materials.
Debt capacity analysis, coverage ratios, leverage review, scenario modelling, downside sensitivity, use-of-proceeds logic, and repayment profile design.
Capital stack design, tranche logic, tenor design, amortisation assumptions, pricing framework, collateral package, reserve mechanics, and covenant architecture.
Drafting the memorandum, executive summary, key risk section, lender Q&A positioning, transaction highlights, data-room structure, and lender-ready supporting pack.
Identifying the lenders, debt funds, family offices, or credit platforms that actually have appetite for the deal profile instead of wasting time with generic outreach.
This work is not performed by one generalist with a laptop. A proper mandate may require multiple professionals, each with a different function and cost profile. Rates vary by geography and seniority, but the market ranges below are real-world numbers for experienced external professionals and specialist advisory resources.
| Role | Typical Function | Typical Market Rate |
|---|---|---|
| Structured Finance Analyst | Financial spreading, covenant logic, debt sizing, leverage review, and model support. | USD 150 to USD 300 per hour |
| Vice President / Structuring Lead | Capital stack design, lender positioning, structuring decisions, and negotiation support. | USD 350 to USD 700 per hour |
| Compliance / KYC Specialist | Sanctions screening, beneficial ownership review, AML flags, jurisdiction screening, and counterparty checks. | USD 125 to USD 275 per hour |
| Transaction Counsel | Term sheet mark-up, security review, intercreditor drafting, escrow and guarantee mechanics, and legal risk analysis. | USD 450 to USD 1,100 per hour |
| Tax / Structuring Counsel | SPV domicile planning, withholding tax analysis, treaty review, and cross-border leakage assessment. | USD 500 to USD 1,200 per hour |
| Technical Consultant | Project or asset diligence for infrastructure, energy, industrial, mining, or asset-backed mandates. | USD 175 to USD 450 per hour |
| Trustee / Security Agent | Collateral oversight, security holding, and administrative coordination for secured structures. | Often annual or per-transaction fixed fees |
Even a routine mid-market financing request usually requires far more than a teaser and a one-line explanation. Below is a practical list of materials that are often needed before lenders will engage seriously.
Certificate of incorporation, shareholder register, constitutional documents, board authority, beneficial ownership declaration, management biographies, and organisational chart.
Historical financial statements, interim accounts, debt schedule, aged receivables if relevant, pipeline or backlog detail, and management forecasts.
LOI, SPA, APA, lease, concession, EPC contract, offtake agreement, supply agreement, mandate letter, or whichever binding commercial document underpins the financing need.
Sources and uses, total capex or acquisition budget, sponsor equity contribution, third-party costs, reserve requirements, and draw schedule.
KYC, sanctions clearance, litigation summary, major counterparty profile, jurisdiction summary, collateral evidence, and asset ownership support.
Teaser, underwriting summary, information memorandum, model outputs, covenant logic, repayment narrative, and a properly ordered data room.
A retainer covers the advisory mandate. It does not magically eliminate the other costs that serious transactions normally require. Borrowers who balk at advisory fees usually forget that financing processes routinely include legal, diligence, filing, administrative, and structuring costs as well.
These are not unusual numbers. They are part of normal transaction execution in real-world capital raising.
If the deal is truly material, the sponsor normally allocates budget. If no budget exists, the issue is usually readiness, credibility, or seriousness.
The following examples illustrate why large retainers exist. These are representative case profiles based on the type of work involved in real mandates. They are not included to justify anything. They are included to show what the work actually looks like when a sponsor expects a professional firm to move a serious file.
The sponsor required refinancing across multiple operating solar assets with jurisdictional complexity, inconsistent asset-level reporting, and lender sensitivity around cash sweep mechanics. The retainer covered restructuring of the base-case model, normalisation of operating data, legal coordination for security review, creation of the lender memorandum, reserve logic design, and lender sequencing across banks and private credit funds.
The borrower needed a revolving working capital line supported by receivables and commodity flows. The mandate required receivables analysis, collateral eligibility review, concentration analysis, borrower KYC upgrades, transaction waterfall design, and packaging for multiple lender profiles. The retainer covered analytics, compliance work, document repair, lender mapping, and placement preparation.
The project required ring-fenced SPV mechanics, security trustee coordination, capex schedule validation, EPC and offtake review, and multi-party lender engagement. The sponsor had a large headline transaction but weak documentation at the start. The retainer funded the actual build-out of the file into a financeable package and the coordination needed to take it to market properly.
In each case, the sponsor understood that the advisory firm was being hired to do real work. No one serious asked for months of analysis, packaging, structuring, and market preparation on a hope-and-maybe basis. They budgeted for execution because they expected the transaction to be treated seriously.
Lenders want a ready file. They want the numbers to reconcile, the structure to make sense, the documents to exist, the collateral story to be credible, the sponsor contribution to be real, and the path to repayment to be obvious.
They do not want a borrower who says the deal is worth USD 50 million but cannot explain the sources and uses. They do not want an acquisition file with no executed LOI. They do not want a project financing request with no land rights, no EPC path, no permits summary, and no capex basis. They do not want a trade finance request where the applicant has no contract control, no LC capacity, and no compliance pack. An advisor is engaged to close that gap, but closing that gap costs money because it consumes professional time.
Companies with revenue, management accounts, and a defined financing need who understand that documentation and preparation matter.
Sponsors with a real project, a credible path to permits and contracts, and budget for advisory, legal, and diligence costs.
Buyers with an LOI, APA, or serious acquisition process who need the capital stack packaged and presented properly.
Sponsors with a live transaction, property-level data, and the willingness to fund execution rather than shop advisers for free labour.
Parties who claim to control large transactions but cannot budget for a retainer are usually one of four things: not decision-makers, not ready, not capitalised, or not genuine. In some cases they are simply trying to externalise all transaction cost onto the advisor. None of those profiles is attractive to lenders, and none justifies professional firms working for free.
If you do, why is there no budget for advisory, legal, and diligence work on a multi-million-dollar transaction?
If it is already lender-ready, why has the capital not been raised? If it is not lender-ready, why should a third party repair it for free?
A borrower who contributes no advisory budget is asking the advisor to fund the preparation, absorb the opportunity cost, and take the reputational hit of a weak file.
Most clients would not. The reason they ask it of advisors is simple: they think advisory work is informal. In real capital markets, it is not.
That approach usually destroys lender confidence. Professional lenders prefer a coherent file, not a half-prepared request that signals the borrower is not organised.
Because the work starts before funding is secured. The retainer pays for preparing the file, the structure, the narrative, the analysis, and the lender positioning required to obtain a serious review.
No. A success fee compensates closing. It does not fund the weeks or months of work required to make a complicated transaction presentable in the first place.
Then the need for a retainer is stronger, not weaker. Larger transactions require more structure, more diligence, more legal support, more lender coordination, and more senior time.
Many come from environments where formal capital markets, intermediated debt processes, and advisory disciplines are less developed. They expect an advisor to behave like a bank, a principal investor, and an unpaid execution desk at the same time. That is not how serious financing works.
It says the client is engaged, budgeted, serious, and prepared to run a proper process. That is exactly the signal lenders want to see.
If you have a real transaction, control the mandate, and are prepared to fund proper execution, submit your deal for review. Financely will assess whether the file is suitable for advisory, structuring, and lender placement support.
Financely provides advisory, packaging, structuring, and capital raising support on a best-efforts basis through its network and, where relevant, through regulated or licensed counterparties. It is not a bank, does not promise approvals, and does not represent that any lender will fund a transaction. Financing outcomes depend on credit quality, documentation, sponsor strength, structure, market conditions, and third-party underwriting decisions.
Financely advises growth-focused businesses on accessing capital by introducing their opportunities to professional investors. Financely is not a securities broker or dealer. Where appropriate, engagements are coordinated with regulated broker-dealers, investment banks, legal counsel, and other specialists.
Financely does not solicit, offer, or accept orders to buy or sell securities and makes no assurance regarding capital-raising outcomes.
Services are strictly business-to-business. Financely does not provide personal finance, consumer credit, or retail advisory services.
Advisory services are reserved for post-revenue companies that recognize the time and resources required for professional underwriting.
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All mandates start with an RFQ. We review submissions, issue a brief Go/No-Go memo, and where bankable, release a Term Sheet that leads to funding. We arrange capital across Senior Secured, Unitranche, Second Lien/Mezzanine, Preferred Equity, and Gap Solutions. We do not process deals by email or chat.
Letters of Credit, Standby LCs, Confirmations, Receivables Finance, and Inventory Lines with control.
Funding arranged for trade flows with instruments sized to your cycle and aligned to delivery and settlement.
Move forward to secure working capital and keep goods moving. Submit the RFQ to start underwriting for funding.
Limited or non-recourse structures for energy and infrastructure with lender-ready materials.
Funding solutions aligned to project cash flows with credible covenants and conditions to reach notice to proceed.
Advance the file to termable status. Submit the RFQ so we can underwrite and secure funding.
Debt and Preferred solutions anchored on cash flow, Quality of Earnings, and clear closing mechanics.
Funding across senior, unitranche, and preferred to match stable cash flows and acquisition timelines.
Get financed on workable terms for closing. Submit the RFQ to start underwriting.
Acquisition, development, bridge, and refinance with lender-ready packs and third-party reports managed.
Funding calibrated to DSCR, leverage, and tenancy with terms designed to close.
Move to a financeable package. Submit the RFQ to initiate underwriting for funding.
KYC and Source of Funds required. Engagements are best-efforts and subject to underwriting. Preference for operating companies with meaningful revenue. See our FAQ and Procedure.
Financely Inc. (“Financely”) provides corporate-finance advice and is wholly owned by Aurora Bay Trust, a trust formed under Bahamian law, together with its authorized affiliates. Depending on deal structure, jurisdiction, and local rules, engagements may be carried out through Financely Group LLC, a non-deposit-taking, non-banking financial company; Ashford Capital Advisory LLC; or another related entity.
Financely and its affiliates are not registered as securities broker-dealers and do not execute securities transactions or hold client funds or securities. When a mandate involves the purchase or sale of securities and a registered intermediary is required, any orders are introduced to and executed by one or more independent U.S. broker-dealers registered with the SEC and FINRA. Those broker-dealers are solely responsible for trade execution, custody, and related regulatory obligations. Nothing in this material constitutes an offer, solicitation, or recommendation to buy or sell any security or to engage in any specific transaction. Before engaging Financely Group LLC, Ashford Capital Advisory LLC, or any affiliate, you are responsible for confirming that such engagement complies with your own legal, regulatory, tax, and other requirements. In the United States, certain advisory activities may be conducted in reliance on exemptions available under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, including the “foreign private adviser” exemption where applicable. Our services and regulatory status may vary by jurisdiction and by transaction type.
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