Selected Experience

A renewable-energy business was preparing a major portfolio financing with an international group of lenders. It already had a detailed financial model, but much of the logic sat behind VBA-driven processes. Internal teams struggled to follow the calculations, and the lenders faced the same problem.

EXEMPLUM® rebuilt the model around financial logic that people could trace, question and explain. The challenge was to preserve the complexity of the underlying portfolio — from individual project cash flows to financing structures, repayment schedules and lender tests — without carrying that complexity into every discussion.

The rebuilt approach brought the calculations, assumptions and checks into a more coherent structure, making it easier for different teams to work from the same financial picture.

When an investment business works with successive financial models, it needs more than a fresh set of spreadsheet checks each time. It needs a consistent way to understand whether calculations can be followed, where risks lie and which issues deserve attention.

EXEMPLUM® carried out a series of independent technical model reviews using the client’s established review policy. The work combined structured testing with documented findings, discussions with modelling teams and reviews of revised models. The same discipline was applied across assignments, but conclusions depended on the model and its intended use — not simply on the number of observations produced by review software.

In further engagements, our review work also extended to selected assumptions and financing mechanics. Some review cycles ended with issues addressed and verified. Others concluded with unresolved limitations clearly explained. In both cases, the objective was a better understanding of what the model could — and could not — reasonably support.

An expanding multi-site service business had outgrown the financial model developed for its earlier stage. Management needed more than a forecast: it needed to understand how individual locations were performing, how rental capacity and customer demand affected revenues, and how investor funding translated into future cash requirements.

EXEMPLUM® developed an integrated operating model built around the way the business actually worked. Individual locations were planned using capacity, utilisation and pricing assumptions, then combined with central costs and consolidated reporting. Accounting-aligned actuals provided the starting point for updated forecasts, while financing schedules connected interest and repayment commitments to the wider cash-flow picture.

The result was a financial framework connecting day-to-day operations, reported performance and funding — designed to remain useful as locations opened, actuals evolved and business assumptions changed.

A team overseeing a portfolio of investments needed to compare approved budgets with actual funding, repayments and outstanding financing positions. New capital calls, changing terms, extensions and partial repayments had to be reflected without requiring the team to maintain complex spreadsheet formulas.

EXEMPLUM® developed a dynamic monitoring framework built around just two straightforward input areas: one for approved budgets and their adjustments, and another for actual financing transactions. Power Query and Excel Dynamic Arrays connected these records to flexible calculations and reporting, allowing routine changes to be captured without redesigning the underlying model.

The result was a practical monitoring tool that allowed the team to focus on recording transactions, tracking budget utilisation and monitoring remaining investment headroom — without having to maintain the underlying financial calculations.

A long-term investor was assessing a growing series of forestry opportunities. Each investment had its own characteristics, but the financial models needed to follow a common approach. Without that consistency, every new transaction risked becoming another spreadsheet that investment teams and reviewers had to learn from scratch.

EXEMPLUM® established a shared modelling framework with consistent structures, conventions and calculations, while allowing individual investments to retain their particular commercial and financial features. Over time, feedback from investment teams, external reviewers and risk management helped refine the approach. Later models combined established FAST-style structure with selected Excel Dynamic Array techniques.

The result was more than a collection of individual models: a common modelling approach that could evolve with the client’s investment activity, making new models more consistent, easier to review and less dependent on starting again.