Warbler’s First Community Risk Review

Authors: @Obinna @blakewest

Summary

To set the Goldfinch protocol up for a strong foundation of future growth, and in preparation for exciting future enhancements, the Warbler team has made significant improvements to our approach to risk monitoring and underwriting.

We have also prepared the first community risk update, which we are excited to share. We will be sharing these on a quarterly basis moving forward to increase transparency and ensure the community has a clear, high level understanding of the overall basket of loans.

Updates to Risk Underwriting and Monitoring

We have made several improvements at Warbler to how we approach risk underwriting and monitoring. They include:

  • We will start sharing public risk updates with the community on a quarterly basis. We’ll use the monitoring we have been doing internally as a basis for these reports. The first public report is shared below.
  • We have reevaluated our internal underwriting guidelines and processes from the ground up and made a number of changes, both to our requirements around borrower security and to the legal templates themselves, that will improve the security of future loans.
  • We are bringing on a number of external advisors to provide ongoing support.
  • We have made changes to personnel and team structure to better align our team with our future investment strategy.

Opening Up Our Portfolio Risk Assessments

In an effort to increase transparency on all pools, we will start sharing quarterly portfolio risk updates with the community, beginning now. Below, you can find the Q4 risk update.

This Q4 review includes a look through to the ultimate borrowers to which Goldfinch’s credit fund borrowers have provided loans. This included getting underlying data beyond what is required in the loan docs, and performing our own internal review. The goals of our internal reviews are to:

  • Get clarity about each underlying borrower that funds have been lent to, inclusive of deal structure.
  • Determine our comfort level with each borrower’s underlying loans, and each borrower’s ability to repay their bullet loans.
  • Provide a holistic update regarding each borrower’s ability to repay their facilities on time.

After this review, except for previously disclosed issues (Tugende, Stratos, Oriente), we can confirm that, as of today, everything looks good. While confidentiality prevents us from sharing all of the details, these companies are, across the board, adequately capitalized, have well-performing portfolios, and are able to honor their interest and principal repayments when due.

In addition, here are some aggregate stats and themes we discovered during our most recent review:

  • Capitalization: Some borrowers achieved profitability in the last quarter, and continue to perform well. Most of the other borrowers are adequately capitalized, with a few recently completed capital raises. We are continuing to keep a close watch on the few companies that are currently in the process of competing capital raises.
  • Portfolio Performance: Most portfolios continue to perform strongly. A few have shown some weakening in the last quarter but remain well above covenant thresholds. We are monitoring these closely.
  • Collateralization: Our portfolio continues to be overcollateralized, with the average LTV being ~85%.
  • Coverage: Our portfolio spans 39 companies in 20 countries with an average exposure of $2.5M per borrower.

We cannot share detailed info in a public forum like this due to confidentiality agreements. However, if you are a backer in any of these pools, you can get in-depth info in the borrowers respective datarooms.

We will continue to be in close contact with all borrowers and do our best to ensure all payments are made as expected.

ALMA

Total Borrowed & Status: $39M, :white_check_mark: on-time

ALMA is a credit fund that creatively deploys capital for sustainable development. ALMA’s debt platform serves high-growth, impact-oriented companies in a range of sectors, primarily in emerging and developing markets in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

ALMA has raised $39M on Goldfinch spread across 15 borrowers such as consumer lenders, SME lenders, asset financiers, and climate finance companies. All of ALMA’s portfolio companies are in good standing.

Below is more detail on ALMA’s portfolio:

Borrower Description Total Exposure GF Exposure Status
African micro-finance lender focused on women, with operations in 7 countries $14,500,000 $14,137,500 :white_check_mark: On time
Consumer fintech lender based in India, recently acquired by large non-bank $1,796,134 $224,517 :white_check_mark: On time
MSME lender with an offline/online model based in India $2,666,667 $2,600,000 :white_check_mark: On time
Technology platform that connects shippers with qualified carriers to move and manage loads seamlessly $6,000,000 $750,000 :white_check_mark: On time
Vehicle for mid-market asset-backed secured lending in US $5,000,000 $4,875,000 :white_check_mark: On time
A financing platform offering businesses in Brazil access to growth capital $4,583,333 $2,385,416 :white_check_mark: On time
Developer of high-quality carbon credit projects via improved forest management (IFM) methods mainly in LatAm $2,000,000 $1,950,000 :white_check_mark: On time
Project developer for REDD+ forest conservation credits with traditional landowners of Papua New Guinea $1,800,000 $1,755,000 :white_check_mark: On time
Fintech lender providing loans against insurance and business receivables, based in India $3,500,000 $3,412,500 :white_check_mark: On time
Consumer fintech lender focused on informal workers and women, based in Colombia $2,000,000 $1,950,000 :white_check_mark: On time
Owner of a diverse carbon credit portfolio based in US $455,000 $443,625 :white_check_mark: On time
Consumer fintech lender based in Colombia focused on informal and new-to-credit borrowers $6,000,000 $750,000 :white_check_mark: On time
One of Africa’s largest used car trading and financing platforms $8,500,000 $1,062,500 :white_check_mark: On time
UK-based carbon credit project developer of mangrove and other high-quality projects across Asia, Africa and LatAm $1,000,000 $975,000 :white_check_mark: On time
Panamanian fintech for buying consumer electronic devices focused on new-to-credit borrowers, owned by a PE-backed US lender $6,500,000 $812,500 :white_check_mark: On time
Undeployed cash on hand $2,709,483 $892,011 :white_check_mark: On time

Cauris

Total Borrowed & Status: $17M, :white_check_mark: on-time

Cauris is a mission-driven investment firm that provides private credit to financial technology companies in emerging markets. Working across the Global South—with financings in Africa, Asia and Latin America—Cauris partners with fintechs that are making financial inclusion a reality for tens of millions of consumers and small businesses.

Cauris has raised $17.2M through three pools on Goldfinch. This capital has been lent to 5 borrowers, all of which are in good standing and on time.

Below is more detail on Cauris’ portfolio:

Borrower Description Total Exposure GF Exposure Status
Emerging market lender focused on consumer financing $3,995,000 $3,995,000 :white_check_mark: On-time
Emerging market lender focused on SME financing $1,075,000 $1,075,000 :white_check_mark: On time
Emerging market lender providing BNPL Financing for businesses and consumers $4,799,767 $4,799,767 :white_check_mark: On time
Emerging market lender providing vehicle financing for gig workers $5,695,000 $5,695,000 :white_check_mark: On time
Cross-border, tech-enabled logistics company providing credit to exporters, importers and freight forwarders $200,000 $200,000 :white_check_mark: On time
Undeployed cash on hand $1,504,572 $1,504,572 :white_check_mark: On time

Addem Capital

Total Borrowed & Status: $10M, :white_check_mark: on-time

Addem Capital is a Mexico City based credit fund that underwrites and funds structured debt facilities for asset originators within five verticals in LATAM: fintech, real estate, energy, agriculture/sustainable foods, and healthcare.

Addem has raised $10M via one pool on Goldfinch. Capital from this pool has been lent to 9 borrowers, all of which are in good standing and on time.

Below is more detail on Addem’s portfolio:

Borrower Description Total Exposure GF Exposure Status
Affordable loans to Mexican families and small business owners who own real estate. $972,542 $972,542 :white_check_mark: On time
Exclusive Wellness Real Estate development located in San Jose del Cabo, Mexico. $1,200,000 $1,200,000 :white_check_mark: On time
Fintech company focused on the placement and management of group and individual microloans for small entrepreneurs, mainly in the South East of Mexico. $2,063,774 $1,723,774 :white_check_mark: On time
Help companies have cash flow through an online fast and secure way, through a score system that uses AI and securely encrypted data. $131,200 $131,200 :white_check_mark: On time
Lender and collection manager for private schools that helps these institutions to grow faster and lean administrative process at the same time. $2,584,321 $2,584,321 :white_check_mark: On time
Provide agile and tailor-made leasing solutions with competitive rates to Mexican SMEs. $4,709,207 $2,786,223 :white_check_mark: On time
Solving the used car market in Brazil, helping people take advantage of the vehicles as a social mobility tool. $600,000 $600,000 :white_check_mark: On time
Tailor-made leases for Mexican SMEs underserved by the country’s financial system. $334,816 $334,816 :white_check_mark: On time
Used car buyers, unattended by banks, don’t have the same opportunities to improve their quality of life. $2,766,820 $2,341,820 :white_check_mark: On time

Lend East

Total Borrowed & Status: $10M, :white_check_mark: on-time

Lend East is a digital lending platform that connects global institutional capital with alternate lenders in Emerging Asia (Southeast Asia & India). Lend East is revolutionising alternate lending by offering scalable growth capital with zero dilution to technology ventures. Lend East has made high impact investments in Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore & Vietnam since 2019.

Lend East has committed US $50mn in investments across seven market leading platforms across Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam & India; all borrowers are backed by marquee equity investors like Sequoia, Ant Financial, DST Global, Arbor Ventures

Lend East raised $10M via one pool on Goldfinch. Capital from this pool has been lent to six borrowers, five of which are in good standing and on time

One borrower, Oriente (which represents 16% of Lend East’s fund) in undergoing a restructuring. This was shared in Discord and with Backers many months ago. We are awaiting a court decision to understand the full impact. The limited exposure of Oriente means that in the worst case scenario, Backers would be impacted but the Senior Pool would see no losses.

Below is more detail on Lend East’s portfolio:

Borrower Description Total Exposure GF Exposure Status
One of the largest consumer lending platforms in Southeast Asia. The company is backed by leading investors such as SCB Group and Silverhorn Group. $10,000,000 $2,963,504 :white_check_mark: On time
Oriente is a consumer focussed fintech lender based in Southeast Asia. $5,250,000 $1,555,839 :warning: Restructuring
Education financing company headquartered in Singapore and operational in Indonesia and Philippines $2,000,000 $592,701 :white_check_mark: On time
Leading fintech lender in Southeast Asia wiht a focus on BNPL and short term loans across Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Philipines, Indonesia and Thailand $10,000,000 $2,963,504 :white_check_mark: On time
Indonesia based consumer fintech lender $5,000,000 $1,481,752 :white_check_mark: On time
Phillipines based fintech offering payroll-linked loans to consumers $2,000,000 $592,701 :white_check_mark: On time

Stratos

Total Borrowed & Status: $20M, :warning: restructuring

Stratos is a US based credit fund that provides debt capital to US based fintech companies. fintech companies.

As was shared in the governance forums, the Stratos pool faces up to $7M of losses, but those losses will be fully backstopped by Warbler Labs. Warbler is actively pursuing maximum recovery from Stratos, and will keep the community updated.

Below is more detail on Stratos’ portfolio:

Borrower Description Total Exposure GF Exposure Status
Rezi is a residential lease broker which operates in the multifamily lease market. The company enters into master leases with landlords at a discount to landlords expected rent payments, and subleases these units to tenants, making a spread. Rezi is currently in default of the terms of this loan from Stratos. You can find out more information here $5,000,000 $5,000,000 :warning: Restructuring
Three Colts acquires, grows and launches ecommerce SaaS companies that provide enterprise software to businesses that operate on Amazon, Shopify and other online retail platforms. The company is well capitalized and continues to perform well. $13,000,000 $13,000,000 :white_check_mark: On time

Tugende

Total Borrowed & Status: $5M, :warning: restructuring

Tugende is a motorcycle taxi (i.e., boda-boda in Swahili) financing company headquartered in Uganda. In markets where the alternative is for operators to rent motorcycles at exorbitant costs and into perpetuity, Tugende provides affordable financing that allows these operators to own their motorcycles and double their profits from $5/day to $10/day.

The company borrowed $5M from one pool on Goldfinch. They defaulted in July (info here). As we shared in the governance forums, a material restructuring plan has been agreed to in principal that will limit losses from this pool.

The restructuring has not been officially signed yet. But it remains on track. Also, a response plan, for $1M of support was approved by the community, and the first $825k payment has already been made to further reduce losses.

Fazz

Total Borrowed & Status: $1.3M, :white_check_mark: on-time

Fazz is a financial technology company that provides business accounts offering effortless payment, savings, and credit solutions. In Indonesia, the company serves the warung (small shops) and MSME customer segments through its Fazz Agen brand. In Singapore and Indonesia, they support small to medium-sized businesses and enterprises with thier Fazz Business brand.

The company has raised more than US$180M of equity from global and local investors including Tiger Global, Insignia Venture Partners, B Capital and BRI Ventures.

It is headquartered in Singapore and Indonesia, Fazz has over 700 employees spread across regional offices in Malaysia, Taiwan, and Vietnam.

Fazz raised a $1.3M pool on Goldfinch in April 2023. The company continues to perform strongly, and is on time.

2 Likes

Thanks for this! Very helpful.

One puzzle for me are the references to overcollateralization (predating but also included in this risk review) and the potential write-downs to zero for both Tugende and Rezi. I’m not talking about overall recovery given the backstops but want to better understand the structures underlying FIDU.

My understanding (admittedly based on US-centric asset backed lending) is that any assets that a credit fund would lend against would be placed in a bankruptcy remote vehicle to be taken as collateral as or if there are issues at the corporate level. For there to be wipeout risk in that structure you would expect either (1) fraud (2) recovery costs exceed asset value or (3) the underlying assets are otherwise worthless. I recognize in EM lending there’s a greater risk of (2).

Is there any way to provide more color on the structure or what happened to square that circle? I know confidentiality may limit what folks can say, no need to restate that. I just think when you say something like “the Senior Pool is overcollateralized,” then many will have similar expectations to mine.

And if I’m simply mistaken about the nature of these structures in emerging market lending, closing that education gap would be very helpful for FIDU investors and future users of the platform.

Again, many thanks for the review and I appreciate what Warbler and Goldfinch are doing in this space.

1 Like

Good questions from Nate. It may help to read the linked forum posts about the Tugende and Stratos situations. The answer is that it was D, all the above of (1) fraud (2) recovery costs exceeding asset value and (3) the underlying assets being otherwise worthless.

Tugende did a fraudulent inter-company loan on otherwise worthless collateral (taxi motos) and recovery is in process but unsure. Luckily the DAO is backing some of the loss with the treasury.

For Rezi, they used the loan to make (maybe fradulent?, we are not lawyers) bets on alt coins and subsequently the underlying assets (the alt coins) became worthless. Luckily Warbler is backstopping all of the losses from this loan.

The details are linked in the forum posts they included in the OP here.

Our question that would be helpful to add to the risk review:

What percent of outstanding loans are backed by junior capital? It would be great to call these out in the report, as I think most now have backers in the junior tranches that could absorb any further losses.

Are there any outstanding loans where a potential loss could impact the senior pool capital? For example, it was helpful to understand that Oriente is undergoing restructuring with unsure recovery, but that senior pool would not be impacted in a worst case scenario.

Hi @NateHoward and @togbe - I’m happy to provide more color here.

Structure - In place of a bankruptcy remote structure, we have made on-balance sheet loans to borrowers, which are secured by specific assets that have been pledged by these borrowers. These assets vary in nature but typically include some mix of loan receivables, cash in accounts, and physical assets.

These types of structures are more prevalent in emerging markets. Here, in the event of non-performance, we can take possession of the pledged collateral to be made whole but also have direct recourse to the corporate entity. This provides multiple avenues through which we can maximize recovery.

Tugende - As we mentioned in this post, the Tugende default was caused by an inter-company loan made in contravention of our facility agreement and done to support a struggling affiliated entity. This loan took a substantial amount of our security out of our reach. You can read more about this here.

It is also worth mentioning that the writedown to zero was done out of an abundance of caution and not because we had/have a baseline expectation to make zero recovery. We have since shared in this post that we expect a material recovery in the Tugende facility.

Rezi - We are limited in what we can say publicly about Rezi for confidentiality reasons. We have reached out to the Stratos team, and they have said they will follow up with a response.

Junior Capital - Below is a breakdown of the borrower pools outstanding and the breakdown between senior pool capital and backer capital (Junior) in each pool:

Borrower Pool Name Senior Pool Capital ($) Backer Capital ($)
Tugende 4,999,425 0
Almavest Basket #3 1,622,478 540,826
Lend East #1: Emerging Asia Fintech Pool 8,120,000 2,030,000
Cauris Pool #1 3,857,005 1,285,669
Almavest Basket #4 7,499,991 2,499,997
Cauris Fund #4: Africa Innovation Pool 0 2,126,664
Almavest Basket #5 3,750,000 1,250,000
Almavest Basket #6 9,449,814 2,362,453
Cauris Fund #2: Africa Innovation Pool 8,000,000 2,000,000
Almavest Basket #7: Fintech and Carbon Reduction Basket 8,000,000 2,000,000
Asset-Backed Pool via Addem Capital 8,000,000 2,000,000
Fazz 0 1,347,026
Secured U.S. Fintech Yield via Stratos 15,961,390 3,990,348
Total 79,260,103 23,432,983
1 Like

Thanks this is very helpful.

And the position of Warbler right now is that there are no further risks of loss to any of the loan facilities at this point (all payments on time and companies in good standing, etc)?

Has there been any further due diligence done to avoid situations like Tugende or Rezi where borrowers broke multiple parts of their facility agreements?

Will there be another risk review? Didn’t see one for Q4 23.

Let me know if there has been pls.