Revenue Based Finance

Case study: lump sum redemption option for emerging market mobile tech co.

An emerging market technology company provides services via mobile phones. The entrepreneur is confident in an acquisition opportunity, but investors wanted an alternative liquidity provision because acquisition has been uncommon for African tech companies in the social sector. The deal includes a provision for the company to redeem investor-owned equity at investor discretion after 7 years, mirroring a traditional “liquidity event” payout.

Investors did not want to rely solely on an exit via sale or IPO. At the same time, both founders and investors wanted to maximize cash spent on operations to catalyze growth, as opposed to servicing debt or revenue share payments. In addition, the founders believed that an equity investment would be more attractive to subsequent institutional capital.

Target IRR: > 15%

Investment type: Redeemable preferred equity

Company: The company supplies information content in emerging markets that is accessible from mobile phones and tablets. The company has revenue and initial signs of direct-to-consumer and channel uptake. There is no established market, however, for the product, and no history of M&A in the sector and region where the company operates.

Investor: The investor group is led by a foundation that invests in early stage emerging market companies. The lead investor seeks a reasonable return, with an emphasis on supporting high risk/high impact companies.

Key Innovation

Redemption exit option: Conventionally, redemption provisions are used as downside protection and with the expectation that they are likely to have little practical use. Here, investors believe that redemption is just as likely—if not more likely—than a traditional exit by sale or IPO. The deal is structured to provide an attractive financial return through redemption after 7 years in a transaction that resembles an acquisition from the investor’s perspective.

Key Terms

Valuation: Total raise of $500,000 at $2 million pre-money valuation.

Legal structure: The terms are structured to closely approximate standard U.S. “Seed” preferred equity investment model (except for the redemption provision, which is not standard in U.S. Seed Preferred model).

“Lump sum” redemption: Investors can elect to redeem all or a portion of their shares at any time after 7 years. The right to redeem is individual, rather than based on the affirmative election of a minimum percentage of shares as is often seen in redemption provisions.

Redemption price: The redemption price equals the greater of (1) the equivalent of a 15% per year return and (2) the fair market value of the preferred stock at the time of redemption, as established by an independent valuation.

Redemption payment: The Company may elect to pay the redemption consideration over a two-year period, but subject to 8% interest during that period.

Special Considerations

Tax Consideration: The redemption option raises a question of whether the instrument could be characterized as debt for tax purposes, but such re-characterization is unlikely given the minimum 7-year term and option to redeem only a portion of the shares. Furthermore, other deal-specific factors support equity characterization (e.g., otherwise “thin” capitalization). See “original issue discount” details for more detail on potential tax issues.

“Lump sum” redemption considerations: The big question with this type of “balloon” redemption provision is what happens if the company does not have adequate resources to redeem the stock at the time of the election date. A few notes on this point:

  1. Investors should analyze the company’s projected cash flow and consider the likelihood that the company will be able to generate sufficient cash to redeem the stock.
  2. Investors and company may need to work together to modify the redemption payout in order to balance the company’s and investor’s cash needs.
  3. The company may have negotiating leverage in a scenario in which cash is constrained, depending on the governing laws for the company and investment agreement. For example, even with a mandatory redemption provision in the certificate of incorporation, Delaware law prohibits companies from redeeming stock if the redemption would leave the company insolvent.
  4. The company and investors may also want to evaluate the ability to finance the redemption through debt or through a later stage equity investment.

Case study: Performance Aligned Stock: Tax efficient investor returns from revenue pool

Target IRR: Varies but generally between equity and debt returns

Investment type: Performance Aligned Stock

History:  Ron Boehm is an experienced social investor whose investments include a pool of social investments.  He was seeking an investment model that would provide him the ability to get timely returns without the need for the social entrepreneur to exit by sale or other traditional exit, which are less common in social enterprise.   He viewed debt as too inflexible and inappropriate for many of his potential investments, especially the early stage investments.

Mr Boehm began exploring investment models using returns that were contingent based on the timing of revenues.  These models assigned a percentage of revenues to investor returns. While there were a variety of existing versions of these models, under US tax law they created negative tax considerations as the investments would be subject to 26 CFR 1.1275-4 – Contingent Payment Debt Instruments, and thus require the Noncontingent Bond Method (“NBM”) of accounting.  The NBM accounting method when applied to early stage companies made it likely that investors would have to pay income taxes before they received income from the company as the accounting method requires the investor to recognize yet unrealized income similar to Original Issue Discount bonds.

Mr Boehm and investor Andy Lower joined efforts with John Berger, a social entrepreneur with a background in investment structuring, to create a structure that would allow contingent revenue based payments without  triggering 26 CFR 1.1275-4. They engaged the law firm of Womble Bond Dickinson to implement the new structure.

Key Innovation

Mixture of Redeemable Preferred Stock and Preferred Dividends.   

The returns to the investor using the  Performance Aligned Stock structure are derived from a percentage of company revenues that are allocated to a mix of prefered dividends and redemptions.   When a company issues Performance Aligned shares the company is committing to used a fixed percentage of its revenues to return capital to the investor via a pre-set ratio of dividends and share redemptions.

At the end of each quarter the company

  1. Calculates the Dividend and Redemption Pool (D&R Pool) – typically 2-8% of cash basis revenue.
  2. Uses the Dividend Portion of the D&R Pool to pay a dividend to all remaining shareholders
  3. Uses the Redemption Portion of the Return Pool to redeem shares.

The Dividend and Redemption Portions are pre-set ratios.  Combined they return a set maximum dollar return to the investors by the time all the securities are redeemed.  For example, if the investors are to receive a 300% return by the time all the shares are redeemed, they would set the Dividend Portion at ⅔ and the Redemption Portion at ⅓.   (Note: IRR will be less than the Target Cash Return due to time value of money)

Target Total Cash Return is mathematically related to the redemption ratio.  The REDEMPTION Portion = 100% / Target Total Cash Return%. The Dividend Portion = 1 – (REDEMPTION Portion)

Target Total Cash ReturnREDEMPTIONDividend
150%67%33%
200%50%50%
300%33%67%

The terms should be structured so that for the agreed revenue projections the investor will have all of their shares redeemed within 5-8 years, meeting the investor’s target IRR.

The investor is still taking an equity-like risk because in the event the company revenues grow slower than forecast, the investor’s IRR declines due to the slower pace of redemptions.  However, the investors can convert their unredeemed preferred shares to common shares at any time.

ACCOUNTING/TAX TREATMENT

Investors who purchase Performance Aligned shares issued by a corporation should be able to treat each redemption as a combination of a return of basis and a dividend.  If the issuer has retained earnings greater than the redemption, then par value of the stock is treated as return of basis and the premium is treated as a dividend. If the issuer does not have sufficient retained earnings (which could happen in the early years in some startups) then the par value and redemption premium are both treated as a return of basis.  

Even though the security is a preferred stock, the issuer may need to follow FASB 150 “Accounting for Certain Financial Instruments with Characteristics of both Liabilities and Equity”.  This rule requires the issuer to record the security as a liability on their balance sheet.

SAMPLE TERM SHEET

Performance Aligned Stock Term Sheet