Event-based credit

There is a gap between when a business owner earns money and when it arrives.

We lend into that gap. Against a documented event, behind a first mortgage we do not touch.

The gap

Every credit system answers a question.

Banks ask whether income will continue. For a salaried borrower that is the right question. For a business owner whose income arrives in events, it is not. A distribution is not a paycheck. A settlement is not a salary.

Business owners are not risky because their income is irregular. Their income is irregular because they own businesses.

We ask something narrower. Whether one documented event will occur, and whether there is equity behind it if it arrives late.

We lend against events. Not optimism.

What we do

A discreet solution for qualifying borrowers.

A short second mortgage against equity in an owner-occupied residence, underwritten to a repayment event. No refinance. No restructuring. No unnecessary disruption.

The first mortgage is untouched

A low fixed rate cannot be repurchased once surrendered. Preserving it is the point of the structure.

One conversation, then an answer

Describe a situation without names or documents. An initial screen tells you whether it fits.

Real underwriting, quietly

Full interior appraisal on every loan. Written credit memorandum. An independent second reader before approval.

A conservative ceiling

Sixty-five percent combined loan-to-value, and it does not move.

Business purpose only. $500,000 minimum. Secured by an owner-occupied primary residence. Pricing follows the file and is discussed on the first call.

Credit discipline is a function of who is in the room.

For advisors

Refer the client. Keep the relationship.

You already know which client this is.

The introduction remains yours

Complete files are generally handled in twelve to fifteen days, without touching the mortgage you would tell them to keep. You solved it. We did the work.

Full-file underwriting on every loan

A written credit box, a 65% ceiling, and a full interior appraisal. We decline when the file says decline.

Answered before it becomes urgent

You have an answer before your client grows anxious. The first mortgage is not disturbed.

We decline in writing, to you first

If we decline, you hear it from us before your client does, with the reason.

The referral

Three steps.

  1. One

    Call or email

    A sentence about the situation and the event. No permission needed, no name needed.

  2. Two

    An initial screen

    Whether it fits, what we would need to say yes, or that it does not work and why.

  3. Three

    You are updated at every gate

    Appraisal, approval, documents, closing. You hear it from us first, every time.

From the moment you introduce us, the work becomes ours.

Your reputation remains yours.

For business owners

One loan. A second lien, repaid by a dated event.

Throughline makes short-term, business-purpose second mortgages. That is the only product we offer.

What we offer

The loan

Pricing follows the file and is discussed on the first call. There is no rate sheet, because there is no menu.

What we do not offer

We do not refinance first mortgages.

Throughline does not offer, arrange, or broker first mortgages, refinancing, cash-out refinancing, home equity lines of credit, or any consumer-purpose credit. We do not replace, modify, or pay off your existing first mortgage.

We make one product, described above. If refinancing is what your situation calls for, we are the wrong lender and will tell you so.

Why we work behind the first mortgage

A low fixed first mortgage cannot be repurchased once surrendered. Refinancing reprices the entire balance permanently in order to solve a short-term need for a fraction of it. Our loan sits behind that mortgage and leaves its rate, term and payment untouched.

The comparison below is included to explain that reasoning. It illustrates a refinance, which is a product Throughline does not offer. Figures are hypothetical and are not a quotation of any terms, by Throughline or anyone else.

Existing payment — $900,000 at 3.25%, 25 years remaining$4,386 / mo

 

Refinancing the same $900,000 at 7% over 30 years$5,988 / mo

No new liquidity. Roughly $19,000 a year, for the life of the loan.

Refinancing to $1.4 million at 7% over 30 years$9,314 / mo

Payment more than doubles, permanently, for a need lasting two quarters.

A second lien reprices nothing.

Business purpose

What qualifies, and what does not.

Every loan we make must be for a business purpose. We require a written statement of purpose and documentation supporting it, and we decline where the purpose is personal.

Qualifying purposes

  • Working capital for an operating business
  • Business acquisition, partnership buy-in, or practice purchase
  • Meeting a capital call or investment commitment
  • Business or entity-level tax obligations
  • Case costs and operating costs of a law practice
  • Deposits or closing funds on commercial property
  • Payroll, inventory, or equipment for a business you own

Excluded purposes

  • Any personal, family or household purpose
  • Purchasing, refinancing or improving the residence itself
  • Personal debt consolidation or personal credit cards
  • Tuition, medical expenses, or personal taxes
  • Personal investments unrelated to a business you operate
  • Any purpose that would make the loan consumer credit

Why the bank said no

Your last two returns may describe a company that has since changed. A bad year you recovered from. Depreciation that makes a profitable business look thin.

The underwriter was not looking at the thing that will actually repay the loan, because there is no field on the form for it. That is a limitation of the model, not a verdict on your business.

Why we might say no

We decline often.

The ceiling does not move.

Sixty-five percent is where a loan survives a soft appraisal and a late event at once. If your equity does not support the amount, we will tell you rather than stretch.

The event must be documented.

If it cannot be evidenced, we cannot underwrite it. Without a dated source of repayment you will need a second loan to retire the first.

The purpose must be a business purpose.

If the use of funds is personal, we cannot make the loan. There is no version of this product for consumer purposes.

This is a bridge, not permanent leverage.

If you need capital indefinitely rather than until a dated event, you need a different institution.

What happens after you call

  1. One

    You describe the situation

    No names required, no documents, no obligation.

  2. Two

    We tell you whether it fits

    An initial screen, and a straight answer either way.

  3. Three

    If it does, the work becomes ours

    Appraisal, title, underwriting and closing. You are told where the file stands at every gate.

The people

Credit discipline is a function of who is in the room.

A pension chief legal officer. A structured credit principal. A pension chief investment officer. A Marine officer. A career bank president who reads every file second. Not a company that later hired credit people — credit people who built a company.

Kirk Wagar

Founder & Chief Executive Officer

United States Ambassador to the Republic of Singapore under the Obama Administration. Before his appointment he spent more than twenty years as a plaintiffs' trial lawyer, founding and running Wagar Law, P.A. for fifteen years.

Twelve years on the board of the American Association for Justice and sixteen years on the state board of the Florida Justice Association. More than three decades in legal and advisory practice. He built Throughline after three decades of watching sound businesses make expensive decisions in the gap between the work and the money — including his own.

Carrie Howe

Head of Operations

Lieutenant Colonel, United States Marine Corps (Retired), and former Defense Attaché at the United States Embassy in Singapore.

She owns the operational architecture of the platform — process, vendor discipline, and technology stack — and runs the file from first screen through funding and payoff. The discipline that allows a fully underwritten loan to close in roughly two weeks is hers.

John Walsh

Founding Partner

Chief Legal Officer at AIMCo. Previously General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer at Timbercreek, and fifteen years at OPTrust, including as Managing Director, Private Markets.

He brings institutional credit standards, rating agency relationships, and pension-grade governance to how Throughline underwrites and reports.

Krishan Rattan

Founding Partner

Founder of Mount-Row. More than $12 billion transacted across structured credit desks at Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse and Société Générale.

His work informs how Throughline structures and finances a short-duration residential credit book.

Paul Benjamin

Founding Partner

Chief Investment Officer at Cowen, and previously Deputy Chief Investment Officer at Alcoa, where he oversaw a $14 billion pension across more than forty mandates.

He advises on the firm's capital architecture and its relationships with institutional counterparties.

Joe Hurd

Founding Partner

Operating Partner at SOSV. He has served on the boards of Lloyd's of London, Hays plc, and Trustpilot Group plc.

He advises on board construction and the governance standards an institutional platform is expected to hold from the beginning rather than acquire later.

Dwight Hill

Founding Partner

Market President at First Horizon Bank, a leading warehouse lender in the Southeast, following more than twenty-five years at BNY Mellon in Miami.

He serves as the independent second reader on every credit file. No loan at Throughline is approved by the person who wrote it up.

David Marko

Outside Counsel

Partner at Marko & Magolnick, P.A., AV-rated, with more than thirty years as M&A counsel. Appointed to the United States Industry Trade Advisory Committee.

He is counsel to the firm, and every document that leaves it passes through his review.

Additional advisors in institutional credit, structured finance and governance support the firm. Biographies available on request.

The footprint

Eight states. Fifteen by 2027.

Markets we are building
CharlotteRaleigh–DurhamDenverBoulderCharlestonGreenvilleSt. Louis
Loans currently available in
North CarolinaSouth CarolinaColoradoMissouriAlabamaOhioIndianaKentucky
Planned — not currently available
TennesseeVirginiaGeorgiaArizonaUtahNevadaWyoming

Planned states are subject to obtaining applicable state lending licenses. Throughline Lending, LLC does not currently lend or offer to lend in them.

Contact

If you were given our name, you were given it for a reason.

There is no application here. A conversation costs nothing and requires no names or documents.

Kirk Wagar

Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Kirk@ThroughlineCredit.com

Carrie Howe

Head of Operations

Carrie@ThroughlineCredit.com