# 3ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWYZ

Upfront fee

The fee paid by a borrower to a syndicate of banks for making a loan. The fee is often tiered, with the agent bank receiving a larger amount as a consideration for structuring the loan and/or underwriting larger amounts and thereby assuming greater risk. Upfront fees paid to syndicate members are almost always a function of commitment size. Sometimes upfront fees will be structured as a percentage of the sum committed to the loan plus a flat fee. For instance, an upfront fee of 100 basis points plus $50,000 flat fee. The flat fee is fixed, but the balance of the total fee is a percentage of the bank's ultimate allocation after the loan is syndicated. If a bank commits $100 million to a $1 billion credit but $2 billion is received in commitments the bank's final allocation may be only $50 million. The upfront fees would then be $50,000 plus 100 basis points of the $50 million final allocation.