Glossary

Glossary

“Our cooperative is like the railroad station in our community. It will be here, even if the trains don’t come anymore and somebody far away decides to pull up the track, we will still have our cooperative in our community because we built it ourselves.” E.W. STEPTOE

Reparative capital

Employee ownership

Senior debt

Loan participation

Reparative capital

Capital structured to help reverse long-standing patterns of exclusion by expanding who can own, build wealth, and benefit from local business.


Capital stack

The layers of financing that fund a deal, each with its own level of risk, return, and priority for repayment.


First-loss reserve

A pool of backup money set aside in advance to absorb initial losses, helping protect participating lenders.

Employee-ownership buyout

When employees purchase the company they work for as an ownership transition, rather than the business being sold to an outside buyer.


Senior debt

The primary loan in a deal, repaid before other forms of financing if a business runs into trouble.


Loan participation

An arrangement in which several credit unions each fund a portion of one larger loan, sharing opportunity and risk.

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