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TSL Feature Articles

  • BrianResutek_Headshot_150x150 Mitigating Borrowers’ Cybersecurity Risk
    Financial and collateral review? Check. Appropriate lender agreements, carveouts and lien perfection? Check. Review of borrower’s cybersecurity policies and procedures? Can you repeat that? When it comes to lender due diligence and documentation, organizations are well versed with modeling, credit procedures and deal structures; however, there is a continually growing blind spot that lenders cannot afford to ignore: Cybersecurity. 
  • RyanJaskiewicz_150 Unleashing the Power of AI in the Secured Finance Industry: A Journey into Change and Evolution
    Aug 2, 2023
    Change is the great shapeshifter of existence. It is the unseen artist who paints the landscape of our lives with broad strokes of innovation and evolution. In the world of secured finance, change is manifesting through a potent and promising medium—Artificial Intelligence (AI). One particular AI innovation, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, is at the frontier of this change, offering a path filled with opportunities and potential challenges.
  • Where Are They Now? Catching up with prior SFNet 40 Under 40 Award winners
    Jun 13, 2023
    From promotions to new jobs, award winners share their career advice for the class of 2023 winners and what they have learned.
  • Hugh Larratt-Smith_150 The Use of Covenants in a Discretionary Factoring Facility
    May 30, 2023

    SFNet’s Crucial Conversations webinar, “The Value and Effective Use of Covenants in a Factoring Transaction,”

    focused on why covenants are needed in a discretionary factoring facility; covenant types and reporting frequency; the art of picking the right covenant(s) and more. Here, panelist Hugh Larratt-Smith provides a recap of the webinar.

  • CollinZGroebe_WinstonStrawn_150 ABLs, Bitcoin Miners and Monetizing Stranded Energy
    Apr 24, 2023
    This article discusses the bitcoin mining industry’s role in providing demand support to energy producers by monetizing otherwise stranded energy produced from oil drilling and solar and wind facilities. Consumption of stranded energy by bitcoin miners should help secured lenders underwrite loans, because it can reduce air pollution resulting from natural gas flaring and improve life cycle economics of renewable energy sources. 
  • IanFredericks_Headshot_2023_150 Interview with Ian Fredericks, President - Hilco Merchant Resources – The Retail And Consumer Operating Company Within Hilco Global
    Ian Fredericks joined Hilco Global in 2011 after working successfully as a distressed merger and acquisition and corporate restructuring attorney. Over the course of his career, Fredericks has negotiated and closed hundreds of transactions involving tens of billions of dollars. In 2017, he was a recipient of M&A Advisor’s Emerging Leaders award and in 2022 was named to the executive committee of the Secured Finance Network board of directors.
  • The Story of Foothill Capital
    In this new feature series, “The Story of,” Charlie Perer sits with the key entrepreneurs and executives who have built leading commercial finance companies to talk about the origins of their respective firms. The purpose of this series is to tell the story behind many of the most famous and dynamic firms of past, present and future. The first feature is about Foothill Capital, which, of course was acquired by Norwest in 1998 and later by Wells Fargo. The core team at Foothill went on to be leaders at Wells Fargo Capital Finance and throughout the entire commercial finance industry.
  • Michele Ocejo In the Spotlight: Women-Dominated Teams in Secured Finance
    Apr 3, 2023
    It’s no secret that, despite great progress in the last couple of decades, secured finance remains a male-dominated field. Here, we shine the spotlight on three unique SFNet members whose teams are made up of more women than men.
  • Michele Ocejo It’s All About the People
    There are few individuals more genuinely positive and upbeat than SFNet’s own Michele Ocejo. On her 30th anniversary of joining SFNet, I took the opportunity to sit down with our heralded but unassuming director of communications and discussed the importance of relationships, making an impact, and the joy she gets from sharing people’s stories.
  • TSL0323_RetentionArt Taking a More Proactive Approach to Retention
    Secured finance, much like the rest of financial services, is often a high-pressure industry, requiring long hours to resolve client concerns, handle due diligence, and scout for new prospects. Professionals in the field are commonly answering emails in the wee hours of the morning and late into the night. But the greying of the industry and attrition are causing secured finance executives to take a long, hard look at employee concerns, as well as DEI, recruitment, and retention initiatives.
  • Norma Kuntz-Headshot-150 Interview with Gordon Brothers’ New CEO Norma Kuntz
    Mar 20, 2023

    In December, Gordon Brothers announced that Norma Kuntz would be appointed CEO of the company, effective February 13, 2023. Ken Frieze and Michael Frieze will continue to serve the company as chairman and chairman emeritus, respectively.

    Kuntz joined Gordon Brothers as its president and chief operating officer in June 2022 and quickly demonstrated her readiness to lead the firm. Prior to Gordon Brothers, she served as the chief operating officer and chief financial officer of global private equity at The Carlyle Group. Her nearly 25 years of financial services industry experience includes global roles within private equity, asset management, alternative investments and valuations, positioning her well to lead a multi-disciplinary global firm poised for growth.

  • KimDesmarais (1) Crypto-Based Lending and the 2022 UCC Amendments
    Feb 6, 2023
    In this article, the author revisits cryptocurrency-based lending and how the 2022 UCC amendments provide welcome clarity to lending transactions involving digital assets.
  • Eileen Wubbe 150x150 Factors: Prepared for Uncertainty Ahead
    Jan 30, 2023

    Factors discuss what surprised them in 2022, California’s disclosure laws, rising interest rates, the move from ABL to factoring and what they expect 2023 will bring.

  • TSL0123_WorkoutArt Three Keys to a Successful Workout
    Given the relatively low levels of outstanding loan balances and the macro-economic environment over the past couple of years, the number of borrowers/loans that have ended up going into ‘workout’ have been few and far between. PKF Clear Thinking executives provide details on what is needed for a workout to succeed for both lender and borrower
  • SethBenefield_150 Interview with Bank of America’s Seth Benefield
    In this installment of our series of executive interviews, Charlie Perer sits with Seth Benefield, head of Bank of America Business Capital and Asset-Based Financing, to hear his perspective on the state of the ABL market, challenges of running one of the biggest ABL groups, ABL as a product or business, leadership and competition, among other things.
  • CaseyJohnson_Hylant_150 Trade Credit Insurance – More than Insurance
    Dec 1, 2022

    The global trade credit market continues to grow with increased international business opportunities and carriers making trade credit more accessible to the market. You may be asking – what is trade credit insurance? Trade credit insurance (TCI) insures your accounts receivables against losses due to bankruptcy, unforeseen insolvency, or protracted default. But, trade credit insurance is more than just insurance. Once your A/R is insured, it is a secured asset, and can be used to leverage many ROIs.

    Why do companies acquire a trade credit insurance policy? Trade credit can help build a healthy pipeline of new revenue, increase access to capital, prevent a catastrophic loss, and strengthen an organization’s balance sheet. Here are the top four motivating factors for trade credit Insurance.

  • Workout Workshop: A Guide to Navigating Problem Loans
    Nov 28, 2022

    Many ABL professionals have little to no workout or bankruptcy experience thanks to the past ten years of relative calm. This article details the anatomy of an ABL workout and serves as a primer for many readers and a refresher course for more experienced lenders.

  • The Single Group Facility: Simplifying Cross-Border Receivables Finance
    Nov 21, 2022
    In November of 2021, SFNet announced its first Cross-Border Finance Essay Contest, sponsored by Goldberg Kohn Ltd. Members of SFNet’s International Finance and Development Committee judged the essay submissions on content, originality, clarity, structure and overall contribution to furthering and expanding understanding and discourse within the field of cross-border finance. This essay is the first-place essay.

    The authors of the winning essays have been invited to participate on a panel at SFNet’s 78th Annual Convention in Austin, TX, Nov. 9-11. The third place essays were published in the September issue of TSL and the second place winner was published in the October issue. 
  • Michele Ocejo Nonbank Regional Asset-Based Lenders Provide an Overview of their Market
    TSL’s editor-in-chief gathered the heads of several nonbank regional asset-based lenders to discuss the industry from their point of view, including the challenges and opportunities, effects of COVID and their predictions for the upcoming year. 

    The executives interviewed are Tom Cleveland, managing partner, Access Business Finance; Michael Fussell, president, Aegis Business Credit; J. Brad Leach, president & CEO, Lighthouse Financial Corp.; Rhett Rowe, CEO, Great Lakes Business Credit; and Patrick Trammell, founding member and president, Southeastern Commercial Finance.
  • SFNet's 2022 Hall of Fame Profiles
    Nov 10, 2022
    On the following pages, we honor the industry icons who have been inducted into the 2022 SFNet Hall of Fame. We all owe a debt of gratitude to these leaders. Although they represent the industry during various periods of time, they have all made  critical contributions to secured finance and deserve our appreciation for making the industry and our association what it is today.

Click on the link below to meet some of the “difference makers” in the secured finance community. This issue of The Secured Lender celebrates those who are having a profound impact on both their communities and their organizations. 

See Profiles


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