New Series: Complaints! First up: Fees, Fees, Fees

Complaints may arise from misunderstandings, and the misunderstanding can come from the person doing the talking. So here we (Capital Corp Merchant Banking) have decided to start a new series addressing complaints in the Project Financing market; complaints about fees, timing, fakers, the process, specific industries, etc. We want to iron out the kinks and help you understand our job, our goal – which is to ultimately get our clients the funding they need to make their projects come to life.

Nobody likes them. Nobody likes paying them.

Nevertheless, you can’t drive a car on empty. You need fuel. But there is always a limit to things. Many of our clients fear fees because of bad past experiences, sometimes even crazy experiences. While we charge no upfront fees, no retainer fees, no application fees, no revision fees, nor any stand-by fees, many people looking for funding elsewhere will have to put up with them. So what are these fees?

– The application fees: you see these everywhere. Even credit card companies charge them: American Express, for example, will charge you just to apply to get one of its cards!

– Revision/Review fees: these are the fees that some companies or banks will charge clients just to look over their business plans and documentations.

– Retainer fees: these are the fees that will sometimes be charged to people just so their names will be kept on the ‘to review’ list. Companies will charge retainer fees to clients just to retain the documents that clients have sent them; the company will say it’s overloaded with work, but if you pay x amount, we’ll keep your name in the pile.

– Meeting fees: yes, they do exist! Aside from the money you may have to spend to travel over to the meeting place (hotel, food, plain/train/automobile), some companies will charge you a fee just to meet them. A certain amount of their precious time will mean a certain amount of your precious money coming out of your pocket.

– Commitment fees: these fees mean that the company from whom a client wants to get funding is charging them a fee to promise them that they will get their funding. Often, though, these commitment fees are not even backed up by a bank, so this is what you can call ‘bogus’!

What we do here at Capital Corp instead is to talk to our clients first, see what their project is about, and then if they agree to work with us, then we all sign a document to get the process going and will charge our clients a minimum payment to start working on the project… but the kicker is that if a transaction does not close because of Capital Corp’s fault, all those fees are indeed refundable. And if the transaction does close? Then this fee is deductible from the final amount that we will charge our clients. It is not an add-on fee, like so many other companies – it’s part of the whole.

Hearing our clients complain about all their bad past experiences makes us at Capital Corp Merchant Banking want to be the best funder we can be to them – for all the right reasons. Having integrity is not an antiquated notion and we stake our reputation by it.

If you find a funder and are looking over at the fees that they are charging you and you start asking yourself questions – good! That means that you sense something is off, and you should trust that.

Always make sure that you make an informed decision in all cases,

All the Best,

Capital Corp Merchant Banking