Free Flow USA

Founder and Chief Investment Officer John Gilmartin holds the Investment Committee seat and makes all final credit-approval decisions. Gilmartin previously spent roughly 20 years at Blackstone's GSO Capital Partners, where he co-headed the energy practice and managed the firm's energy mezzanine and special-situations vehicles. The small deal team comprises former GSO colleagues, but the underwriting culture and portfolio construction are built around Gilmartin's personal risk framework.

The firm predominantly source deals bilaterally, by maintaining longstanding relationships with renewable and conventional-power developers below $500 million in enterprise value. Gilmartin's GSO network provides a first-call advantage with sponsors who need capital outside a competitive auction; the firm rarely, if ever, participates in broadly marketed bank syndications. This relationship-based sourcing model is the firm's primary differentiator.

Free Flow writes structured credit, preferred equity, and rescue-financing commitments ranging from $10 million to $50 million per transaction. The capital is typically deployed into pre-construction or early-commercial-operation assets that traditional project-finance banks won't touch. Instruments are heavily documented and often include cash-sweep mechanisms, PIK toggles, and board observation rights.

The firm deploys capital entirely through direct investments and co-investments — it does not operate as a fund-of-funds and has not been observed committing to third-party private equity or credit funds. Its vehicles include discrete fund vintages and managed accounts for institutional LPs.

The firm has not publicly published a negative list, but based on its track record, Free Flow avoids upstream oil and gas exploration and production, coal-fired generation, and consumer credit. The mandate is intentionally narrow — power, midstream infrastructure, and infrastructure-adjacent real estate tied to the energy transition — which excludes venture-stage technology, healthcare, and generalist corporate lending.

Gilmartin's career at GSO — where he deployed billions into stressed power and midstream credits — provides the pattern recognition Free Flow uses to underwrite binary energy risks. The firm applies documentation standards and covenant packages that resemble GSO's energy mezzanine playbook. This means Free Flow's credits often look like distressed-for-control instruments even when taken out on performing assets, reflecting a bias toward creditor-on-the-ground legal rights rather than reliance on sponsor equity cushions.

Free Flow USA is a specialty private credit manager, not a family office. It manages third-party institutional capital through commingled funds and managed accounts and is registered with the SEC as an investment adviser. Despite its boutique scale and founder-driven culture, it takes outside LP capital and charges management and performance fees on standard private credit terms.