Two sessions of 3.5 hours each, providing 7 hours of instruction. Each session is built around a real transaction, combining case discussion and debrief with lectures that turn the case into practical lessons.
Pre-course
Pre-reading
Read the concentrated solar case (BrightSource) before Session 1 and the utility-scale solar acquisition case (Clear Blue Sky Solar, Part A, Columbia CaseWorks) before Session 2.
Pre-work
Run the acquisition model and submit your bid two days before Session 2. The class debrief is built around participants’ bids.
Session 1: Investing as an Exercise in Risk Management
Case discussion: A concentrated solar plant (60 min)
Every investment involves trade-offs. Physical assets create disruption, and different layers of the capital stack price risk differently. Explore how those risks are assessed and allocated, and ultimately answer the question: who takes the risk?
Case debrief: What are risks and how are they measured? (45 min)
Investing means taking risks, not avoiding them. Examine the competing interests of owners, banks, agencies, NGOs and utilities. The plant ultimately delivered only 70–80% of forecast, exposing technology lock-in and risks that had not been modeled.
Lecture: The risk framework (60 min)
One question drives credit investing: how can I lose money? Learn the four steps of an investment: understand the business model, identify the risks, mitigate or allocate them, and decide. Explore how risk is transferred through contracts, insurance and loan agreements.
Lecture and discussion: Making forecasts (45 min)
Profit = P × Q − C, but volume is a distribution, not a number. Examine how forecasts move from third-party studies and expert adjustments to confidence levels such as P50, P90 and P99. You hire the experts, but you carry the risk.
Session 2: Maximizing Value in the Deal Process
Case discussion: The competitive sale of a utility-scale solar project (60 min)
A competitive process creates enormous pressure to close, but is it a good investment? Test the assumptions behind a bid, including useful life, degradation and P-level, and examine how each assumption changes both risk and value.
Case debrief: How do you create value through an acquisition? (45 min)
Compare valuations across the group and explore the second-best bidder’s dilemma. Test sensitivities around useful life, generation, degradation and the merchant curve. When the sun and opex are fixed, cost of capital becomes the lever.
Lecture: Loan structures (60 min)
Structuring is about allocating cash flows and risk. Examine amortization, DSRA, cash sweeps and step-in rights, and compare fixed principal and interest with target-balance and sweep structures across 1,000 simulations.
Lecture and discussion: Term sheets and the deal process (45 min)
Follow a loan from market approach and diligence through term sheet, loan agreement and close. Work through a battery storage construction and term loan to understand how commercial terms, risk allocation and negotiation shape the final deal.
Optional Session 3: Creating Value by Taking Risk Off the Table
First-of-a-kind LNG financing: Calcasieu Pass
Examine a late call into a $5.8 billion club deal: normal syndication or adverse selection? Explore execution risk across performance, cost overruns, delays and interfaces, and why a contract is only as strong as the contractor’s credit. See how taking individual risks off the table can open access to cheaper pools of capital.
