Situations
Nobody searches for a capital advisor. They search for the problem.
A covenant that just tripped. A facility maturing in 9 months with no renewal offered. A bank that has stopped returning calls. An acquisition the senior lender will fund only halfway. These are the 7 situations that bring an operating company to this desk, what each one actually requires, and how the work runs.
Covenant breach, or 1 coming
A leverage or coverage test failed or will fail at the next quarter end. The window is the reporting date. What it requires: the compliance certificate and the calculation, the loan agreement's cure and waiver provisions, a 13 week cash flow, and a plan the lender can approve before the test rather than a surprise after it. Outcomes run from a waiver with a fee, to an amendment resetting the covenants, to a refinance with a lender who prices the risk instead of refusing it. Where the agreement carries an equity cure right, that is read first. Handled under the Refinance or Placement Engagement depending on size.
Maturity wall
A facility matures inside 12 months and the incumbent has not offered renewal, or has offered it on terms that do not work. What it requires: starting 9 months out, not 90 days, because a competing process takes about 90 days on a prepared file and lenders price a borrower on a clock accordingly. The incumbent is kept warm and informed; a refinance run in secret from the existing lender is how amendments get refused.
Lender fatigue
The bank still holds the loan and has stopped wanting to. Slower responses, tighter reporting requests, a relationship manager reassigned, a workout group copied on emails. What it requires: reading it early, because a lender that has decided to exit will do so on its own timeline if you do not set 1. The answer is usually a refinance to a lender with appetite, run while the relationship is still cooperative.
Acquisition the senior lender will only fund halfway
The target is agreed, the senior facility is committed, and there is a gap between senior capacity and the purchase price. What it requires: a junior layer, mezzanine, structured equity, or a seller note, structured alongside the senior lender under an intercreditor agreement so both close in the same room on the same day. Sizing follows the combined cash flow, and the gap is documented, not assumed.
Owner recapitalization
A partner buyout, an estate settlement, a divorce, or an owner who has everything in 1 company and wants some of it out without selling. What it requires: earnings that support the debt after the distribution, a facility whose lender is comfortable funding a distribution rather than growth, which most banks are not and most direct lenders are, and guarantee scope negotiated hard because the owner is taking cash and the lender knows it.
Rescue and special situations
Liquidity measured in weeks, a lender in default remedies, vendors on stop. What it requires: a 13 week cash flow on day 1, a forbearance conversation with the existing lender, and capital priced for the situation, usually asset based or from a special situations lender, sized to bridge to a sale, a refinance, or a restructuring. The firm works alongside restructuring counsel here and does not substitute for them. If the honest read is that the company cannot be financed, that is the read, on day 2, not month 3.
Stacked advance positions on a company that has outgrown them
A business at $1,000,000 to $5,000,000 in revenue that took merchant cash advances to grow and now cannot get bank credit because of them. What it requires: the position schedule, the collateral read, and a buyout facility that retires every position at par at closing. This is the Refinance Engagement, and the position buyout page sets out the structure.
How a mandate runs
5 phases, about 90 days, ending at funds flow.
The shape is the same across the mandates; the size of the facility and the depth of the materials change. Timing is typical for a prepared file and the biggest variable is the quality of the financial statements the work starts with.
Capital architecture
Balance sheet review, 3 year model, consolidated debt capacity, and a capital plan agreed with ownership before any lender is approached. If the plan does not work on paper, no lender is approached.
Materials
Credit memorandum and data room built to the standard an investment committee reads, so the file survives underwriting instead of dying in diligence. This is the work product that is yours whatever happens next.
Competing placement
Counterparties scored for appetite, a short list you approve, blind soft market, then term sheets compared on the full cost of each and on the full set of constraints, with the firm's compensation shown on every line.
Guarantee containment and diligence
Personal guarantee limits, covenants, cure rights and reporting negotiated into the term sheet before exclusivity. Then diligence managed against the data room.
Documentation and closing
Credit agreement, security, intercreditor where there is a junior layer, guarantees. Your counsel on the paper, the firm on the business terms. Funds flow on the closing date.
Advisory mandates are fixed fee engagements delivered by Citadel Ridge LLC, a Wyoming limited liability company. The fee purchases analysis and work product, never a promised result. Citadel Ridge is not a lender, a law firm, an accounting firm, a broker dealer or a registered investment adviser, and works alongside your counsel and CPA rather than in place of them.
Start with the file
A straight read within 2 business days.
Send the basics through the intake form: what the file supports, what is missing, and the next step if there is one. If we are not the right desk for it, we say so.