Article List

Heritage Bank of Commerce Builds Out National Specialty Finance Group

Heritage Bank of Commerce (the “Bank”), a subsidiary of Heritage Commerce Corp (Nasdaq: HTBK), today announced that the Bank continues to expand its Specialty Finance Group. The Specialty Finance Group consists of Bay View Funding’s national factoring business and the Bank’s national Asset-Based Lending (“ABL”)/Corporate Finance team and regional Small Business Administration (“SBA”) lending team in the San Francisco Bay Area.

eCapital Corp. Names Charles Sheppard as Chief Operating Officer

eCapital Corp. (“eCapital”), a leading alternative finance provider in North America, today announced that Charles Sheppard, formerly president of the eCapital Freight Factoring Division, has been named Chief Operating Officer (COO) of eCapital Corp. In this new role, Charles will oversee both the eCapital Freight Factoring and eCapital Commercial Finance divisions, ensuring the company has unified leadership and is well-equipped to continue to scale and further establish itself as a leader in alternative finance.

Rimini Street Announces $90 Million Commercial Bank Financing to Fully Redeem Remaining Series A Preferred Stock

Capital One, National Association acted as sole lead arranger and bookrunner and Cowen served as exclusive financial advisor. Baker McKenzie LLP acted as legal counsel to Rimini Street, and Paul Hastings LLP acted as legal counsel to Capital One, National Association.

Interview with Melissa Mok, Director of Asset-Based Lending Originations, Truist Securities

The Women in Secured Finance e-newsletter's feature interview for this issue is with Melissa Mok, director of asset-based lending for Truist Securities. Mok joined Truist Securities in 2014. Located in Texas, she is responsible for ABL originations of mid- and large-cap companies and is currently focused on the Financial Services, Energy and Industrial Services. TMT and TME industry verticals.

Oxford Finance Provides Credit Facility to Veteran-Centric Healthcare Provider Valor Healthcare

Oxford Finance LLC ("Oxford"), a specialty finance firm that provides senior debt to healthcare services and life sciences companies worldwide, today announced the closing of a senior credit facility to Valor Healthcare, Inc. ("Valor or "the Company"), an outsourced provider of high-quality primary care and mental health services to veterans in the United States.

Left Behind: Minority Debt Holders and Superpriority Exchanges

A trend towards superpriority debt exchanges that has begun appearing in out-of-court restructurings will continue to cause worry amongst minority debt holders and will likely result in continued litigation regarding the propriety of such exchanges. Examples of such troublesome exchanges began with an exchange conducted by Serta Simmons Bedding, LLC (“Serta”) and has continued with structurally similar transactions conducted by other companies, including Boardriders, Inc. (“Boardriders”) and TMK Hawk Parent, Corp. (“TriMark”).

Tyler Layne and Lee Sands, attorneys at Waller Law cover three recent out-of-court debt transactions that have introduced a novel way for majority lenders and borrowers to improve their position at the detriment of the non-participating/minority lenders.

FGI Appoints Ronnie Bloom to Expand its Canadian Presence

FGI Worldwide LLC (www.FGIWW.com) has announced the hiring of Ronnie Bloom as the newest Managing Director. Based in Toronto, Mr. Bloom will be responsible for growing and nurturing FGI’s strategic partnerships within numerus Canadian markets by embracing a committed, boots to the ground approach.

Scott_Baldinelli_-_Santander_Bank_Commercial_Banking_Division

Santander Names Scott Baldinelli as Head of New England Middle Market Banking

Santander Bank, N.A. (“Santander Bank” or “Santander”) today announced the appointment of Scott Baldinelli as Head of New England Middle Market Banking. Baldinelli will report to Joe Abruzzo, Head of Commercial Banking for Santander Bank.

Baldinelli will lead business development, market growth and relationship management for Commercial Banking’s middle market segment in New England, encompassing the company’s Boston-based location. The industry veteran will assume the role from Robert Cerminaro, who was recently promoted to Head of Mid-Corporate Banking in Santander’s Commercial Banking division.

Interview with Heather Sonnenberg, Partner, Blank Rome

WISF Committee member Heather Sonnenberg concentrates her practice in commercial finance, with a particular focus on asset-based and cash-flow financing for various industry sectors, including manufacturing, healthcare, and other service industries. She serves a wide range of clients, including banks, commercial finance companies, mezzanine lenders, and other institutional lenders, along with private equity firms, hedge funds, and publicly and privately held corporations.

Ares Commercial Finance Provides an $11 Million Credit Facility to NHI Mechanical Motion, LLC

Ares Commercial Finance announced that it has provided an $11.2 million senior secured credit facility to NHI Mechanical Motion, LLC comprised of a revolving line of credit, a real estate term loan and a term loan secured by machinery and equipment. Proceeds from the financing were used to support the acquisition of the business and for ongoing working capital support.

Twin River Secures $275 Million Of Additional Financing

Twin River Worldwide Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: TRWH) announced today that it had successfully syndicated an expansion to the term loan facility in its existing bank credit agreement by $275 million. Funding, which is expected to occur on May 11, 2020, is subject to final documentation and customary conditions.

Borrowings under the expanded term loan facility will bear interest at LIBOR + 8.00% per annum through the 2026 maturity date. The loan will be issued with an original issue discount of 97 and will be non-callable for 18 months. After 18 months the loan is callable at a price of 104.5% of par, and after 30 months the loan is callable at par.

Interview with Paul Cronin of Santander Bank

Coming up on almost one year as head of ABL at Santander Bank, Paul Cronin reflects back on his proudest accomplishments, goals and new challenges with COVID-19.

JimCretella_Otterbourg_Headshot_2021_150x150

Interview with Jim Cretella, Chair of Otterbourg’s Alternative and Specialty Finance Practice Group

In March, Otterbourg P.C. announced that James M. Cretella was named Chair of the firm’s Alternative and Specialty Finance Practice Group. A member of the firm’s Finance Department, Cretella represents lenders, factoring companies and other finance companies, as well as borrowers, in a variety of transactions.

Cretella has practiced at Otterbourg for his entire career and his experience encompasses financial transactions across a broad range of industries, including staffing, technology, transportation, oil and gas, and government contracting. His areas of focus include asset-based lending, supply chain finance, trade finance and specialty finance. He often acts as “outside in-house counsel” to finance companies and specialty lenders.

Cretella is a 2016 winner of the Secured Finance Network’s 40 Under 40 Awards.

Here he discusses his role and how the industry has evolved since he started.

Wingspire Capital To Acquire Liberty Commercial Finance

Wingspire Capital Holdings LLC (“Wingspire Capital”) announced an agreement to acquire Liberty Commercial Finance LLC (“Liberty”). Wingspire Capital is a portfolio company of Owl Rock Capital Corporation, a publicly traded business development company that is externally-managed by an indirect subsidiary of Blue Owl Capital Inc.

Otterbourg Names James Cretella Chair of Alternative and Specialty Finance Practice Group

Otterbourg P.C. announced today that James M. Cretella has been named Chair of the firm’s Alternative and Specialty Finance Practice Group.

“His leadership qualities are equally impressive, and we are pleased that he will chair this expanding practice area.”

A member of the firm’s Finance Department, Mr. Cretella represents lenders, factoring companies and prominent financial institutions, as well as borrowers, in a variety of lending, factoring and corporate transactions.

Citizens Leads $125 Million Credit Facility for Franchise Group, Inc.

Citizens announced today that it is lead left arranger of a $125 million asset-based loan for Virginia Beach, VA-based Franchise Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: FRG).

Franchise Group is an operator of franchised and franchisable businesses that continually looks to grow its portfolio of brands while utilizing its operating and capital allocation philosophy to generate strong cash flow for its shareholders. This transaction refinances an existing ABL for two of its businesses – American Freight and Buddy’s Home Furnishings.

Anatomy of a Deal: Participations

At Haversine Funding, we take pride in offering unique and flexible alternatives to our clients. The adaptability built into our DNA allows us to provide senior and junior lines of credit - exclusively to factors and lenders - ensuring we don’t compete with our clients.

Software as a Service (“SaaS”) Lending is Going to Become Mainstream

It’s only a matter of time before SaaS lending enters mainstream ABL. Lending to SaaS, which stands for Software as a Service, differs from traditional software in that it is deployed and made accessible to users over the internet (or in the “Cloud”), and is going to be the next ABL battleground. Today it remains a niche lending vertical conducted mostly by tech-focused banks and nonbank credit funds. However, this is going to change meaningfully as the SaaS industry continues to mature. There are an estimated 10,000 private SaaS companies, the vast majority of which are early stage, generating less than $3 million in annual revenue. To put this in perspective, companies such as the wildly popular Zoom and workforce tool Slack utilize SaaS models. The U.S. economy is well into a transformational period where many business tools are moving to the cloud.

Castlelake Partners with Aequum Capital to Establish Specialty Lending Platform

Castlelake, L.P. ("Castlelake"), a global alternative investment manager with approximately 17 years of experience investing in asset-rich opportunities, and Aequum Capital Founder, LLC ("Aequum"), a tech-enabled specialty finance lender, today announced a partnership establishing a new commercial lending platform for the origination and servicing of efficient senior asset-backed loans to small and medium-sized businesses in the U.S.

Canada’s Anthem Entertainment Ups Spending Power by $550 Million with New Credit Facility

The acquisitive Canadian music rights and services company – formerly known as Olé Entertainment – has announced that it has secured a new revolving credit facility of USD $400 million, plus a USD $150 million accordion.

Truist Securities served as Left Lead Arranger of Anthem Entertainment’s new $400 million credit facility. Fifth Third Bank acted as Joint Lead Arranger, Union Bank acted as Syndication Agent and Regions Bank acted as Documentation Agent.

Other banks in the facility include Bank of America, Bank Hapoalim, CIT Bank, First Horizon Bank, HSBC Bank, Pacific Premier Bank, Pinnacle Bank and Scotiabank.

Articles

The Secured Lender