Specialty Construction Mezzanine Debt & Capital Stack: An Independent Sponsor's Counsel
When the deal is specialty construction and the question is Mezzanine Debt & Capital Stack, the structure decisions in the first 30 days outlast the next five years. This is where Jason Powell works.
Mezzanine Debt & Capital Stack on specialty construction deals is one of those workstreams that looks routine on a checklist and decides outcomes in practice.
The typical specialty construction platform sits at $8M to $110M EV with EBITDA in the $2M to $18M range. The thesis runs on trade-specific buy-ups (roofing, mechanical, electrical, fire protection). Bonding capacity is the gate. Without it, the independent sponsor deal stalls at the first big project bid post-close.
How Mezzanine Debt & Capital Stack actually gets structured.
Target senior leverage at 3.0x to 3.5x EBITDA, mezzanine at 1.0x to 1.5x on top.
Negotiate an intercreditor agreement that does not throttle the operator.
Structure mezzanine with PIK toggle and warrants priced into the IRR model.
Confirm covenant headroom of at least 20 percent at close.
In specialty construction, layer in surety pre-qualification for the buyer entity as part of the Mezzanine Debt & Capital Stack workstream.
Letting the lender pick the intercreditor terms. Those terms decide what the operator can do on day 180.
"The capital stack is a contract, not a spreadsheet. Read every page of every term sheet."Jason Powell · Mezzanine Debt & Capital Stack
The deal is one thing. The capital that opens up after close is another.
Capital after close is where the IRR actually gets made. The right introductions at month nine through month thirty are where this practice works as hard as it does at the LOI.
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Mezzanine Debt & Capital Stack for Specialty Construction, on independent sponsor terms.
Independent sponsor counsel that already speaks fluent deal-by-deal economics, structures clean LPAs, and travels with capital markets relationships for what comes after close.