Prepared for lenders, CDCs, and federal agencies to SBA SOP 50 10 8, USDA RD Instruction 5001, and conventional underwriting standards. Fiduciary duty runs to the lender and the agency, never the borrower. More than 4,000 studies since 1998 covering $40.2 billion in evaluated project value.
Tribal projects carry a layer of analysis no other category requires: sovereign legal structure, trust versus fee land status and its collateral consequences, Section 17 corporation governance, and the tax position that sovereign status confers. The feasibility study addresses the leasehold-mortgage structure available under 25 USC §415 where land is in trust, embeds applicable sovereign tax exemptions in the operating model where they are real, and presents the lender a credit analysis that is honest about both the advantages and the structural conditions precedent.
Methodology applies the firm's standard category discipline — traffic capture, competitive census, RSMeans budgeting — supplemented by tribal-specific elements: land-status documentation, BIA process mapping, tribal employment and TERO considerations, and component financing where multiple operations share a site. Conditions precedent on land status are stated plainly.
Every Wert-Berater financial model is fully linked with no hardcoded values, so any reviewer can stress any input. Deliverables comprise a complete narrative report and the linked Excel model, with ten-year pro forma, sensitivity analysis at ±5, 10, and 15 percent, interest-rate stress from +0.5 to +3.0 percent, and ratio analysis benchmarked against RMA and IBISWorld data.
SBA engagements are prepared to SOP 50 10 8, including its debt-service-coverage minimums of 1.15x operating and 1.00x global. USDA engagements follow RD Staff Instruction 5001 across the Business & Industry, Community Facilities, REAP, and Value-Added Producer Grant programs. Conventional engagements are built to the lender's stated coverage standard, typically 1.20x. Engagements support conventional and SBA lending to tribal enterprises and Section 17 corporations, with the study addressing the collateral and jurisdictional questions reviewing counsel will raise before they raise them.
The reference engagement is a $3,969,648 travel center with retail strip for a tribal Section 17 corporation in Nevada, with eight sovereign tax exemptions embedded in the base case and component-level DSCR analysis. Independence is non-negotiable: determinations follow the evidence and are not revised under pressure, and studies are built to pass lender, agency, and third-party review without exception items.
Qualify a project. Tell us about the project and the program. We will tell you the truth about it — scope, timeline, and fee confirmed before work begins.
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