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The financing clock
A facility letter carries three dates a board rarely works back from: the maturity, the day by which notice must be served, and on an acquisition the vendor’s exclusivity expiry. Enter them below and the clock gives you the one date that matters at the start, the last day an engagement can be signed and still complete safely, then dates every stage of the process from the signature you have in mind and places your board meetings against the decisions they will be asked to take.
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Clearing and challenger banks; a credit committee may sit monthly. Planning band 12 to 16 weeks.
The final maturity or expiry in the facility letter. Unsure? The refinancing read below estimates it from the register.
Days before maturity by which notice of non-renewal or prepayment must be served. Often 90. Leave blank if the letter sets none.
Day 0 of the process. The plan below is dated from here.
Optional. The day the break cost falls to the next step, if the letter has one.
Next board meetings
Optional. Each date is placed against the decision it can carry.
Set the signature date and the clock is set.
How the clock is set
A whole-of-market process has a shape that does not change much from deal to deal: an information request and a management session, a model and a spread, a lender pack, one approach window, term sheets, a recommendation and your selection, credit approval, documentation, completion. Bank-led processes plan at 12 to 16 weeks from signature to drawdown; fund-led processes, with a single credit committee, at 10 to 14; an acquisition at 12 to 20, anchored to the vendor’s exclusivity. The table shows each stage at the fast and slow ends of the band for your situation.
The clock works back from the slow end. Completing before maturity means finishing 30 days early, so the latest signature is the maturity less that buffer less the full band. Serving notice means having a credit-approved alternative in hand first, so the latest signature is the notice date less a week less the slow end of credit approval. Exclusivity works the same way as notice. Whichever constraint gives the earlier date governs, and the gap between it and your planned signature is the slack: four weeks or more is comfortable, less is tight, a negative figure means the process must run at the fast end or the existing facility must be extended first.
Boards decide three things in a process: the lender shortlist, in writing, before anyone is approached; the lender, on the recommendation; and the resolutions for the borrowing and the security at completion. Each has a window on the same week scale, so a board date falls into one of them or into none, and a window with no board date in it needs a written resolution or an ad hoc meeting planned now rather than found later.
The bands are planning defaults and are re-cut at kickoff. Four things set the real pace, and none of them is the paperwork: how quickly the kickoff information arrives, the selected lender’s credit-committee cadence, solicitor turnaround, and the outgoing lender’s cooperation on releasing security.
If you do not have the dates
The maturity and the notice period are in the facility letter, usually in the definitions and the prepayment clause. If the letter is not to hand, the refinancing read estimates the window from the charge on your Companies House file, and the refinancing guide sets out what each stage of the process asks of you.