Services

Your project has unique elements that factor into your overall performance objectives. Our strategy team conducts an immersive analysis of your project to understand success metrics, opportunities, and exposure. CIRM ensures you receive objective third-party advice on hedging strategies. To design the most effective hedge program, we analyze a wide range of project and stakeholder information including loan covenants, proformas, investment objectives, and risk tolerance to develop cost-effective, relevant hedge programs that are designed to reduce borrowing costs and deliver your desired outcomes.

We work closely with your team to provide a strategy that is comprehensive and accretive. We build tools specifically for you to optimize project returns which saves time to focus on your core business. This means detailed focus on areas like hedged amount, hedged rate, duration, budget, and lender requirements. CIRM applies proprietary stress testing with simulations executed across a range of cash flow and forward rate scenarios, resulting in a practical suite of strategic alternatives that are high-performing, market-tested, and - most importantly - meaningful for our clients.

CIRM’s all-inclusive hedge execution service combines seasoned professionals with our efficient, well-established processes. These are designed to reduce friction and market exposure for our clients. For more than 40 years we have been efficiently managing every step of the trade process, providing market transparency that allows our clients to prioritize aspects like execution timing, lowest price, and lender relationships. We actively work with a broad base of major Swap Dealers and bank hedge counterparties worldwide. CIRM provides in-depth expertise for the onboarding process and regulatory landscape, having seamlessly executed thousands of trades for clients in our firm’s history.

CIRM’s state-of-the-art client portal allows on-demand access to monitor and measure your debt portfolio: including current and projected performance of your loans, assets, and hedges. Dynamic visuals, graphs, timelines, and data downloads are available at both a project and portfolio level. Market information and analytics are integrated daily, and updated reports are available on demand, such as yield curves, treasury and swap rates, hedge subsidy projections, and monthly valuations. Other features include a document repository and important event reminders to keep our clients aware of upcoming events relevant to their loans and hedges, allowing clients to make proactive decisions, not reactive.

For CIRM’s clients, underwriting and budgeting are crucial functions that help determine their level of risk and threshold for exposure for any given project. CIRM assists clients to understand and stress-test debt service costs with respect to their existing metrics, loan requirements, and project goals, across a variety of future scenarios. This allows our clients to better evaluate investment and financing decisions.

CIRM is a founding member of the interest rate management consulting industry. Michael Ochs, an economist, established CIRM in 1981 and led the company for 30 years. With over 40 years of experience hedging interest rate risk across multiple and volatile economic cycles, CIRM’s unparalleled and deep experience informs our market analysis, risk management advice and short-term rate forecasts. All CIRM clients have access to this wealth of market expertise via client-specific publications as well as on-demand custom analyses and commentary for their meetings and stakeholder presentations.

CIRM is a registered Commodity Trading Advisor and a member of the National Futures Association. In our decades providing onboarding services, we have worked with a comprehensive range of Swap Dealers and bank hedge counterparties. CIRM has in-depth expertise in the onboarding process and regulatory landscape. We help our clients comply with the necessary regulations to trade and manage every stage of the hedge execution process.

CIRM understands the importance of our clients’ strong lender relationships. CIRM keeps this front of mind while ensuring we act as our clients’ fiduciary, helping them achieve terms that are market-based and project appropriate. Our counsel provides insight on the potential economic impact of interest and hedge-based loan covenants.