Articles

Rising Together. This concept serves as both the theme for this month’s issue and SFNet’s upcoming online conference Women in Secured Finance: Where Women Rise. 

During this challenging time, it’s more important than ever to highlight and celebrate the contributions and accomplishments of women in our industry. Statistics show that the pandemic has had serious effects on women in the workplace, as we struggle with added pressures on the job, increased unemployment and increasingly challenging caregiving responsibilities. 

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.

With over $370 trillion of global financial contracts referencing LIBOR (London Inter-bank Offered Rate), many oil and gas companies are curious about how the phase-out of LIBOR by 2021 could impact their organization. Many companies are beginning to ask how this transition will impact their organization and what steps can be taken now. The following is a discussion of:

• why LIBOR is being phased out;
• the transition plan for the phase-out;
• items companies should consider; and the steps that can be taken now.  

The new Company Stabilisation and Restructuring Act (StaRUG for short) entered into force on January 1, 2021. It is based on a European directive on the introduction of a pre-insolvency restructuring procedure, which was adopted in June 2019.

The intention is to facilitate early restructuring of companies and in any case before insolvency occurs. The idea is to avoid the disadvantages of insolvency - a possible loss of reputation and high costs for the affected company, disruption to trade and to safeguard employment.

Pacific Western Bank is pleased to announce that Melinda Fricke has joined the Bank as a Senior Vice President, Business Development Officer on its asset-based lending team. She will be located at the Bank’s Plano, Texas office. Melinda will expand the Bank’s efforts to deliver asset-based lending solutions to middle-market businesses in North Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana.

Context Business Lending, LLC ("CBL") a family office-backed leading, national asset-based lender, announced today a trio of experienced new hires with the addition of Rebecca Smith, Sherrill Hornett and Veronica Griffin. Each are industry veterans known for their customer-centric approaches to ABL and provide expertise critical to the continued growth of CBL's portfolio.