The meeting involved a deep discussion on a financial model with specific focus on tranches, cash flow, tax, and the concept of "solver". The participants, referred to as State Changers, were trying to figure out the most efficient way to simulate and optimize the cash flow across different tranches and how noncash expenses like early debt extinguishment and unamortized OID could affect taxes, thus influencing the free cash flow.
One participant, Cameron, presented his model where he is trying to bring his taxes as close to zero as possible by calculating the cash flow after each tranche to optimize the system. They discussed the impact of variables like payment schedules, debt sweep and early pay-off of debt on cash flow. However, the participants struggled with the conceptualization of what a successful or solved model should look like, and how to implement a "solver" function that helps to achieve this. Pavel and Aya, other participants, tried to help Cameron understand that the goal is to reduce taxes and, hence, increase free cash flow. They suggested iterating over tranches within each period to find a tax-minimizing combination of inputs and outputs. Ray, another participant, encouraged Cameron to consider experimenting with his approach, understanding that financial simulators can become quite complicated and messy. He reiterated that the ultimate objective would be to get the tax as close to zero as possible to maximize free cash flow. No specific software or tools were mentioned during the explanation of the financial model, hence none of the keywords were referred to.
(Source: Office Hours 9/25/2023 )
