Energy savings certificate financing: an overdraft facility to pre-fund works before the certificates are sold

Our client: an integrated energy retrofit operator in France

Our client is an integrated operator in the energy retrofit of single-family homes, active across France through a network of branches and subsidiaries specialised by trade. Its model rests on a customer base of private owner-occupiers, a high volume of individually modest jobs, and an integrated chain running from the thermal survey to installation, including putting together public grant applications on the homeowner's behalf. Having started out in a single building-envelope trade, the group has broadened its offer to heating systems, ventilation, façades and solar, in a whole-house retrofit approach that has taken it from a specialist craft business to a mid-sized group employing several hundred people.

The financing need: pre-funding works ahead of certificate sales

The purpose of the deal was to pre-fund works carried out in private homes, bridging the gap between the moment a job is paid to crews and suppliers and the moment the energy savings certificates it generates are filed, reviewed, issued and then sold to an obligated party. The case combined three difficulties at once: a structural cash-flow gap that widens mechanically as business volume grows; an intangible collateral asset whose value depends both on a market price and on an administrative decision to issue it; and a sector then under heightened scrutiny from the public authorities regarding the control of operations. The mandate given to the firm covered scoping the need, structuring a case that lenders unfamiliar with this asset class could read, consulting a panel combining banks and debt funds, and then supporting our client through to the facility actually being put in place.

What the lending market was saying in 2025

Three public publications help to place the environment in which this facility was arranged. They cover the scheme and the credit market, never the deal itself.

Why an overdraft facility secured on energy savings certificates

Since the need was a cash-flow gap that unwinds of its own accord with each cycle, the funding had to follow that rhythm rather than freeze it: a revolving overdraft facility, drawn and repaid as cash comes in, matched the nature of the need, whereas an amortising loan would have tied up long-term debt against a short-term asset. The security was built on what the cycle actually produces — the certificates recorded on the register and the receivables arising from their sale to obligated parties — so that the lender follows the asset it finances rather than relying on a balance sheet whose equity would not have absorbed the growth in volumes. This asset-backed approach made it possible to address the central question of the case, which was not our client's creditworthiness but how readable, for a third party, an intangible asset is when its value depends on an administrative decision to issue it. The structuring work therefore covered the legal mechanics of the security as much as the production of reporting that allows the lender to track, file by file, the progress of the pledged pipeline. The tripartite inspection mission carried out on behalf of the economic ministries described the scheme at the time as a mechanism "growing very strongly since its creation in 2005", which captured both the opportunity and the financing need it creates for works operators.

The choices made first ruled out any solution that would have changed the ownership structure: since the need was a cycle need and not an equity need, diluting the management had no economic justification, and funding was sought exclusively in the form of debt. They then focused on the scope of the commitments given: the facility was limited to the identifiable pipeline of certificates, so as to preserve our client's ability to finance its other needs separately and to keep room for manoeuvre for later growth deals. Covenants were discussed in the same spirit, with monitoring indicators linked to the quality of the pledged pipeline rather than balance-sheet ratios that would have constrained operations. Finally, flexibility of use was a selection criterion in its own right, because a cash facility is only valuable if it can be drawn at the real pace of business rather than on a fixed timetable. These choices were made in light of the specific situation of this case and do not prejudge any other transaction.

The macroeconomic backdrop for energy retrofit finance

The energy retrofit sector for single-family homes is underpinned by a public scheme whose scale has grown with each successive regulatory period: the fifth period ended in late 2025 and the sixth, which opened on 1 January 2026, raises the annual obligation to 1,050 TWh cumac — up around 27% on previous levels — with an identified share for low-income households. This scale-up has been accompanied by tighter inspection requirements and a review of the scope of eligible operations, two trends that have gradually pushed out the least structured players and encouraged consolidation around operators able to absorb the administrative burden and the inspections. For these operators, activity is therefore both supported by public demand and exposed to changes in the regulatory framework, which makes control of the filing and issuance cycle central to the business model.

On the financing side, 2025 presented a mixed picture: Banque de France statistics show growth in outstanding investment loans and, at the same time, a contraction in outstanding short-term credit to non-financial corporations, sharper than in 2024. For this type of asset, conventional bank lending comes up against the intangible nature of the collateral, whose value depends on a price quoted on an over-the-counter market and on an administrative decision to issue — two parameters that fall outside the usual frameworks for analysing short-term credit. The gap was filled by specialist asset-based lenders and private debt funds, whose lending policy relies on analysing the underlying asset rather than on the balance sheet alone, and which are willing to take security over book-entry rights. This description applies to the period observed and is neither a forecast nor a recommendation.

How Collaboration Capital added value on this energy savings certificate financing

Collaboration Capital acted as a banking and payment services intermediary (intermédiaire en opérations de banque et en services de paiement, IOBSP — a French-regulated credit broker status, registered with ORIAS under no. 25000696), mandated by our client. The firm does not lend, grant credit or guarantee any funding: it scopes the need, prepares the case, puts lenders in competition and supports the negotiation through to the facility being put in place. The steps below describe this assignment as it was carried out, in its own specific circumstances.

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