Reading The Ice, Funding With Foresight
There’s something distinctly Canadian about tying business lessons back to hockey, and for us, it feels right at home. My dad always said, “The best offence is a good defence.” While I may have rolled my eyes when I was younger, that mindset is surprisingly helpful when thinking about how we approach lending.
At Garrington, scoring a win means funding a deal and getting repaid. But just like in hockey, it’s not all about slapshots and highlight reels. The hard part is often what happens in your own end, getting possession, reading the ice, and making the right move under pressure.
Day to day management of a deal, is like retrieving the puck deep in our zone. We’ve gained control, but the real test is what happens next. Do we pass? Do we carry it? We’re constantly reading the play. Client needs are shifting, markets are moving, and new data is flying in. It’s never binary. Funding decisions are built through a series of disciplined, informed choices. And sometimes, like a good defenceman under pressure, we may choose to slow the pace down and hold onto the puck until the play develops.
Some of those choices are instinctive. You’ve seen them before—seasoned credit professionals making fast, precise decisions. We call that “hockey sense.” It’s not something you teach from a manual. It’s learned through experience, by putting in the training time and mastering the fundamentals.
Here are a few of the fundamentals we look for before we fund a deal:
- Has the account debtor confirmed they received the goods or services and will pay us?
- Are key invoice elements—rates, dates, units—accurate?
- Is the facility operating as agreed?
- Are government remittances up to date, including payroll and HST?
- Do we have current financial and compliance reporting?
- Is there room under the facility and sufficient credit available?
- Is the collateral performing as expected?
- Is dilution consistent?
Each of these checks is part of our process, our defensive structure. And like any good team, we take pride in knowing the system, trusting each other’s judgment, and keeping our stick on the ice.
As a Canadian firm with global reach, we bring that same hockey-rooted sensibility to managing risk, selecting loans, and pacing our portfolio. Because in private credit, like in sport, it’s not just about chasing every opportunity. It’s about knowing when to make the play and when to wait for a better one.
As Canadian hockey legend Wayne Gretzky once said, “Skate to where the puck is going, not where it’s been.”
It’s a line that has found its way into boardrooms and strategy decks around the world, because it speaks to foresight. In hockey, it’s about anticipating the play before it unfolds. In lending, it’s about seeing beyond the numbers in front of you. We don’t just react to what has already happened in a business. We look ahead to where the risks and opportunities are going, and we position accordingly.
That’s how we underwrite. That’s how we manage risk. And that’s how we aim to deliver consistent, all-weather returns for our investors.
