Who Sicil Pine works with
Foundations, community foundations, CDFIs and impact lenders often finance borrowers that fall outside what a conventional bank would underwrite, whether that is a health center expanding into a larger building or an affordable housing project with several layers of capital behind it. Those loans call for the same careful analysis a bank would bring, and the people approving them need an honest picture of the risks before they vote.
Sicil Pine does that work for lenders who want a second set of eyes on a deal, need more capacity than their staff can give a particular transaction, or are working through structures such as New Markets Tax Credits and blended capital for the first time.
Services
- Screening memo
- A short review that helps you decide whether a deal is worth pursuing. It covers the borrower’s capacity to repay, the main risks and the documents full diligence would need, and it is delivered within five business days.
- Full diligence and credit memo
- A complete underwriting of the borrower and the transaction, written up as a credit memo and presented to your investment committee. The work covers cash flow, debt service coverage, collateral, amortization, covenants and downside cases for term loans, lines of credit, real estate, New Markets Tax Credit and blended capital transactions. Most engagements take three to four weeks.
- Portfolio monitoring
- Quarterly covenant testing, a watchlist memo when a borrower starts to slip and an annual risk rating for each loan, so your committee keeps seeing how the portfolio performs after closing.
- Program-related investment design
- Help for foundations building or reworking a PRI program, including the policy, eligibility criteria, underwriting standards, memo template and risk rating scale.
- Underwriting for advisors and intermediaries
- Subcontracted underwriting delivered under your brand and inside your process, for firms that need more capacity on a deal.
How an engagement works
Scope
A short call to understand the deal and your committee’s timeline, followed by a written scope and fee before any work begins.
Documents
A request list built for the deal, covering financial statements, projections, loan documents and anything else the analysis depends on.
Analysis
Cash flow, coverage, collateral and covenant work, with downside cases that show where the plan breaks.
Memo and committee
A written credit memo with plainly stated findings, and a presentation to your committee if you want one.
Independence
Sicil Pine is paid for the analysis, never for the outcome. Fees do not depend on whether a loan closes, and Sicil Pine does not arrange financing, manage assets or make investment decisions, which always remain with your committee.
About Geoff Bachrodt
Geoff Bachrodt founded Sicil Pine and leads every engagement. He has led capital allocation committees that reviewed proposals, decided what to fund and monitored each investment against plan, and he has run acquisitions from sourcing through closing and integration and managed operating P&Ls as a general manager.
Since 2025 he has underwritten transactions independently, including senior secured facilities for nonprofit borrowers and a New Markets Tax Credit leverage loan. He holds an MBA from Georgia Tech and is pursuing a master’s at the University of Chicago with a concentration in ethics.