Debt placement is the process of structuring a credit facility and taking it to the lenders most likely to fund it. It applies to lending businesses and asset-backed originators that have outgrown their existing funding. Zenith structures warehouse, onward-lending and corporate facilities from USD 10m to USD 150m and runs the placement process across banks, private credit funds and development finance institutions.
Platforms originating across one or more markets, moving past founder and family capital into institutional debt.
Invoice, revenue-based and supply-chain originators with a performing book and no warehouse.
Litigation, royalty, trade, equipment and tax-credit strategies that need institutional-grade reporting before institutional money arrives.
Platforms bolting on a lending product and discovering they now need a credit finance function.
| Parameter | Range |
|---|---|
| Facility size | USD 10m – 150m |
| Tenor | 1 – 4 years |
| Structures | Warehouse, onward-lending, corporate, forward-flow |
| Security | Borrowing base against receivables; share pledge; account control |
| Lender types | International banks, private credit funds, DFIs, special situations desks |
| Indicative timeline | 12 – 20 weeks from mandate to first close |
Commercial model
A monthly retainer covers the desk — facility strategy, lender relationships, and the diligence pack maintained live. A success fee is paid on closed tranches. Banks staff a debt capital markets desk; lenders at this scale rent one.
Phase
Phase
Phase
Warehouse and onward-lending facilities placed against a performing book. The work is the loan tape, the cohort curves and the borrowing base — the deck is the last thing a credit committee reads.
Inventory and receivables facilities placed against a book that turns. The work is the SKU tape, the ageing and the settlement timing — the growth story is not the collateral.
Purchase-order, inventory and receivables lines sized to the gap between paying a co-manufacturer and being paid by a retailer.
Facilities secured on assets that move or sit under lease. Advance rates follow valuation methodology and charter or occupancy cover, not the sponsor's balance sheet.
Corporate and asset-backed lines for producers with contracted offtake. Lenders size against the offtake counterparty and the cost curve, so both go into the pack before outreach opens.
USD 100,000,000
A two-tranche club facility for a multi-market emerging-markets lender
USD senior tranche at the Singapore holdco · local-currency and ECB tranche at the India NBFC subsidiary
Facilities for platforms lending against trade documents, not balance sheets
Debt placement mandates for trade finance and commodity receivables platforms — facility structuring and lender engagement
USD 10m to USD 150m is the working range. Below USD 10m the institutional lender universe thins out and a forward-flow or a smaller structured line is usually the honest answer; above USD 150m the process becomes a syndicated one and the timetable extends accordingly.
Twelve to twenty weeks from mandate to first close, assuming the loan tape and the portfolio model exist. Where the reporting has to be rebuilt first, add four to eight weeks — and do that work before outreach rather than during it.
Sometimes, but it is rarely the fastest route. A lender learning a new jurisdiction prices the uncertainty and moves at committee speed. The shortlist leads with desks that have already underwritten comparable books, with new entrants run in parallel rather than instead.
Cohort and vintage performance, loss curves, roll rates, the provisioning policy, and whether field definitions are consistent month to month. What sinks a tape is not weak performance; it is a tape that cannot be reconciled to the accounts.
It gets disclosed to the lenders in the process immediately, with the analysis behind it. Withheld information found in diligence costs the facility; disclosed information costs a conversation and, occasionally, a covenant.
Both. The retainer funds the structuring, the data room and the lender process; the success fee is paid on tranches that actually close. Both are agreed in writing before work starts, and there is no equity component.
Tell us the transaction and the timetable. If it is not something we should run, we will say so.
