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Private Credit

Underwrite against the borrower's own documents.

A credit model is built from the borrower's financials and turned every quarter as new reporting arrives. Provenance ties each figure to the document it came from and shows what changed since the last package.

The problem

The covenant lives in adjusted EBITDA.

Every add-back moves the headroom, and every add-back needs a page that supports it.

Management adjustments arrive in the CIM and the lender presentation. Whether each one holds is decided by the audited statements and the QoE, and that check is done by hand, under time pressure, by the most senior person on the credit.

Hands at a keyboard on a desk late at night, a coffee cup beside them.

Where it fits

Three places it changes the work.

  1. Project Calder audited financial statements, page 8, Note 14. Cost of Goods Sold: Freight and Logistics. Cost of goods sold includes inbound and outbound freight of $6.1 million, $6.6 million and $7.2 million in fiscal 2023, 2024 and 2025 respectively. In March 2025 the Company renegotiated its primary carrier agreement. Management initially expected the renegotiation to reduce freight cost in future periods. In bold red: Freight cost is recurring in nature and is presented within cost of goods sold in each period. The renegotiated carrier agreement changes the rate at which freight is incurred; it does not eliminate the cost. No portion of freight expense has been classified as non-recurring in these financial statements.

    01 Add-backs against the documents

    Each adjustment checked against the page that supports it.

    On the Calder model, two management adjustments added 4.2 to fiscal 2026 EBITDA and moved 37 cells on the covenants tab.

    Note 14 of the audited statements calls freight a recurring cost, so the 1.8 freight add-back does not hold.

  2. Calder FY2025 compliance certificate, Schedule I: net leverage 1.94, interest coverage 5.86 and debt service coverage 1.95 pass. Fixed charge coverage of 1.02 against a 1.05 minimum is marked No, waived.

    02 Quarterly updates

    This quarter's numbers against last quarter's model.

    Each update opens on the inputs that changed and the covenant figures they move.

    The review starts where the risk moved.

  3. The Provenance assistant listing Project Calder figures that rest on a single file, each cited to its workbook cell or CIM page.

    03 Questions from the credit committee

    Ask the deal and get the page.

    When the committee asks why adjusted EBITDA moved, the Assistant answers from the model's version history and the borrower's documents.

    Every figure in the answer opens at its source.

Run it on your next live deal.

Thirty days, with two success metrics agreed in writing before day one.