Wintrust Business Credit (WBC), the asset-based lending (ABL) unit of Wintrust Commercial Banking, today announced plans to expand its geographic reach from a regional provider to a national ABL platform.

Since its founding in 2008, WBC has provided best-in-class asset-based lending solutions with a focus on middle-market businesses in the Wintrust footprint. 

The annual number of bankruptcies peaked at 60,837 in 2009, but the financial and bankruptcy experts expect the level of bankruptcy filings to explode well over that peak during the next twelve to twenty-four months. During the first six months of 2020, there were 3,604 business bankruptcy filings, which is up 26% from the 2,855 filings during the first six months of 2019 (Epiq/Aacer). June year over year chapter 11 bankruptcy filings increased 43% from 2019 to 2020. The June increase is expected to be the start of a wave of business bankruptcy filings as the economic impact of the Covid-19 virus manifests itself in lost businesses.

This anticipated increase in bankruptcy filings means lenders will be challenged to manage an increasing number of borrower relationships during the bankruptcy process, including developing or evaluating various liquidation scenarios.

Lenders will be challenged to anticipate recovery values under different liquidation strategies – ranging from different bankruptcy proceedings, to receiverships, to ABCs, to out of court wind down processes.