Out-of-court restructurings, or LMEs, introduce uncertainty into a company's capital structure. This forces the market to apply an additional 10-20 point discount to the trading price of the company's loans, creating a significant alpha-generating opportunity for specialized investors who can accurately underwrite the LME process.

Beyond its public market valuation, Crocs exhibits key characteristics of an attractive leveraged buyout (LBO) candidate. Its massive free cash flow (over $900M on a $4.3B market cap), manageable debt, and large buyback authorization signal that a private equity firm could acquire it, service the debt, and generate strong returns.

The logistics of servicing ATMs create a powerful local density advantage. Adding a new bank's ATM to an existing route has minimal extra cost, leading to extremely high incremental gross profit margins of 60-80% on new service contracts.

The investment thesis for NCR Atlas isn't about selling more ATMs (the "razor"). It's about increasing the lifetime value and profit per unit through its high-margin "ATM as a Service" offering (the "razor blade"), which increases the price of the service over time.

In small business acquisitions with high leverage, the key variable for success is not the interest rate, but the 10-year amortization schedule offered by SBA loans. This extended repayment period creates crucial cash flow flexibility that shorter-term conventional loans cannot match.

In Phase 1 operational improvements, a Pareto analysis reveals that the majority of value comes from three key areas: aligning and incentivizing the management team, rationalizing the revenue portfolio to focus on profitable segments, and optimizing the operational footprint.

CFOs respond to numbers, not just pain points. Instead of focusing only on your solution's ROI, first translate the prospect's problem into a clear, granular dollar amount. Show them exactly how much money their current challenge is costing them annually.

Pricing is your most powerful lever. For a typical service business with a 10% net margin, a simple 10% price increase goes directly to the bottom line, effectively doubling the company's total profit without any additional operational cost or effort.

The popular narrative of a looming 'wall of maturities' is a fallacy used in investor presentations. Good companies proactively refinance their debt well ahead of time. It's only the poorly managed or fundamentally flawed businesses that are unable to refinance and face a maturity crisis, a fact the market quickly identifies.