During Orbis training courses, we start with a blank inputs tab…then we use state-of-the-art Excel coding and market commercial insights to help you build a bankable analytical tool. Our clients love the pacing, one-on-one attention, and market intelligence they derive from using our courses.
Our courses
Our courses can be conducted virtually or in-person. Here’s our course list:
1. Best practice financial modeling (BPFM)
Participants will learn how to build a working financial model from scratch by building their own training models along with the instructor starting with a blank inputs tab. Participants will have a safe environment in which to make mistakes and “fail forward” by asking important questions, and developing intuition on using the model as a tool for deal negotiation.
Participants will learn
Accordion Content
- Identify good vs. bad modeling using real-life examples
- Learn important short cuts to improve efficiency so you can focus on the commercial terms, not Excel
- Recap the various structural phases of a project finance deal
- Dig into the idea of calculation blocks and how to use them
- Understand the flow of the model builder, including where to go next
- Build a model structure that’s flexible, robust, and scalable
- Learn about the use of counters and flags
- Discuss delay and its effects
- Continue the discussion of styles, top ten shortcuts for efficiently building a new tab
- Start with bringing over construction costs, including contingencies
- Discuss funding requirements
- Match uses of capital with sources – calculate interest during construction and other fees without macros
- Discuss priority of payments during construction
- Equity first? Pro-rata? Who even does debt first?!
- Build simple operational calculations and demonstrate the priority of payments using a cash waterfall
- Create custom revenue calculations; model operational expenses as either fixed or variable expenses
- Understand the structure of a cash waterfall and the importance of “seniority.”
Accordion Content
- Walk through the various debt sizing methodologies
- Distinguish debt sculpting from debt sizing
- Develop intuition around the levers that increase and decrease debt sizing and NPV of equity, including tenor, interest rate, and DSCR
- Create ratio calculations that demonstrate lender compliance including DSCR, LLCR, and PLCR
- Learn the rules of thumb for how ratios should work
- Learn how to analyze a project’s key operational and financing metrics and extract cash for equity
- Create a dividend policy with distribution lock-ups, cash and ratio tests
- Discuss alternative solutions for extracting cash from projects
- Create equity and project IRRs, discuss the differences between them
- Review the intended purposes for each of the statements, including cash waterfall, income statement, and balance sheet
- Complete the linking required to fill out the 3 way statements
- Tricks to balancing the balance sheet and how to minimize the risks of it not balancing
- Understand the various types of sensitivities
- Add in various sensitivities and test results
- Discuss data tables and their limitations
2. Advanced project finance modeling (APFM)
APFM builds on concepts learned during BPFM to help Participants master the critical elements of navigating deal-ready financial modeling situations.
Accordion Content
- Demonstrate a flexible way to model depreciation – MACRS, straight line – with the ability to select method and asset life
- Discuss how depreciation impacts IRR and the financial statements
- Work from the income statement to EBT, calculate and accrue tax losses, then deploy them properly over their statutory life
- Link tax and depreciation through the 3 way statements
- Discuss the commercial needs for DSRAs, MMRAs, working capital facilities, and the differences between them
- Discuss what DSRAs can do, and what they were never intended to do
- Learn the concept of a look-forward
- Create an account to track multiple positive and negative streams of cash flows
- Review and resolve the circularities inherent to a DSRA
- Link the cash flows from a DSRA through your 3 way financial statements
- Introduction to VBA
- Learn about the VBA environment and develop a basic copy / paste procedure using the macro recorder
- Clean up the macro recorded code using named ranges and loops
- Learn how to work through your code step-by-step to resolve issues
- Learn how to stack copy / paste procedures using an Optimize macro
- Discuss how to use your fully developed financial model in a real world competitive bid situation
- Use set bid terms to sensitize your model, gauge results
- Customize outputs to maximize working group efficiency
3. Financial modeling for renewable energy projects (FMREP)
FMREP combines many elements of APFM with market insights to help practitioners in the renewable energy space keep apace with rapidly changing policy frameworks and the attendant impacts on deal structures and models.
Accordion Content
- Review a case study that describes the situation that precipitated the creation of the tax equity market
- Discuss partnership accounting, including 704b capital accounts and HLBV
- Discuss disproportionate allocations
- Discuss how loss reallocation keeps capital accounts in compliance with statutory guidelines
- What is a deficit restoration obligation (DRO), how is it sized, and what does it mean?
- How to model the flip of a partnership flip (Pflip)
- Discuss the equity buyout (EBO) and the impact on the capital accounts, financial statements, and returns
- Draw the “box and line” chart that documents the full tax equity structure; then discuss fair market value (FMV) step-ups and their impact on tax equity sizing
- Modify your construction draw and timing inputs section to optimize your FMV for tax equity sizing
- How is depreciation used in capital accounts? Where might it cause a circularity?
- Adjust your schedules to accommodate multiple depreciation methods and year assumptions (80% MACRS 5 year AND 10% MACRS 7 year AND 10% 15 year straight line)
- Use all the levers to get a tax equity deal over every stakeholder’s return thresholds
- Create and understand all of the IRS required compliance checks
Testimonials
"Thank you for the model training session. I was blown away by your skill set. Besides being an Excel master, you clearly have a good sense of the commercial factors and how they fit together. Well done."
"Thank you, Neil! The course was incredibly helpful for someone who’s just starting out in Project Finance like myself. I know I’ll be turning to this example model often as I start to build models here."
