Ikhwan Rafeek is a Member in the Otterbourg P.C.’s Banking and Finance Department.

Ikhwan represents institutional lenders, banks, commercial finance companies, and factors in connection with the documentation of domestic and international secured lending arrangements, including asset-based, term loan, healthcare, real estate, middle market, leveraged, and first and second lien loan transactions.  Mr. Rafeek also frequently represents secured lenders in workouts and restructurings, and in portfolio acquisitions and dispositions.

What’s in fashion for factoring this coming spring? Quite a bit. This year’s trends show what we’ve all been keeping under wraps for the last two years, and we’ll be seeing some definite changes.

White Oak Commercial Finance ("White Oak"), an affiliate of White Oak Global Advisors, is pleased to announce it has promoted five account executives dedicated to serving its national client base across a range of industries in its New York and Los Angeles offices.

In New York, Laquanda Franklin, Ethan Rosenblum, and Teresa Chan were promoted to Senior Vice Presidents. Ryan Power was promoted to Vice President. All members of the New York team report to Executive Vice President Martin Efron. In Los Angeles, Donald Norman was promoted to Senior Vice President and reports to Executive Vice President Gino Clark.

Robert Grbic has more than 30 years of commercial lending experience. He has been with the company and its predecessor since 2005, previously serving as senior executive vice president and chief credit officer where he was involved in creating a hands-on, best-practices credit culture, as well as helping the Company expand its client portfolio.

Before that, Grbic was managing director at MorrisAnderson & Associates ltd., a turnaround-consulting firm. He also co-founded MetSource Capital, LLC, a restructuring and corporate finance firm, working primarily with small- and medium-sized companies. In addition, Grbic has also served at GMAC Commercial Credit, LLC, BNY Financial Corp and Bankers Trust. He has served as an instructor for the Finance, Tax and Law Department at the NYU School of Continuing Education. Grbic holds master’s and bachelor’s degrees in Business Administration from Pace University.

Citizens announced today that it provided a $20 million revolving line of credit to New York-based luxury fashion retailer Oscar de la Renta.

“Citizens bankers are trusted partners who listened to us, brought great ideas and believed in our growth plans,” said Alex Bolen, CEO of Oscar de la Renta. “The Citizens team has deep knowledge of the retail landscape and their close attention to detail made for a seamless execution.”

Brand executive and corporate counsel Eric Gul has joined Tiger Group as a Managing Director. Most recently General Counsel at Sequential Brands Group, Inc., Gul brings 22 years of experience in advising both public and private companies on IP, licensing, M&A, divestitures, financings and other matters involving consumer-facing brands.

Based in New York, Gul joins Tiger Group at a time when the asset valuation, disposition and finance firm is scaling up its practice of appraising and verifying brand value as lending collateral. He will play a central role in those efforts and will also bring his expertise to projects involving licensing, M&A and new IP investment opportunities.

TSL’s editor-in-chief sat down with several members of the SFNet Factoring Committee to review the current landscape in early 2022. Participants include Carol Apicella, senior vice president, BankFinancial Government Finance; Tina Capobianco, senior vice president, J D Factors Corporation; Dan Karas, executive vice president, Allied Affiliated Funding; Kevin Laborde, president, Cash Flow Resources; and Paul Schuldiner, executive vice president & chief lending officer, Rosenthal & Rosenthal, Inc.

White Oak Commercial Finance, LLC (“White Oak”), an affiliate of White Oak Global Advisors, LLC, announced it provided a $7 million factoring facility to a technology-focused staffing firm specialized in automating and streamlining temporary staffing services to warehouse and distribution centers throughout the United States.

The transaction was structured against the company’s accounts receivable for working capital and to support the growth of its innovative services to light industrial companies and managed service providers (MSPs).

CIT, a division of First Citizens Bank, today announced a reorganization of its Commercial Services factoring business to position it for accelerated growth by providing even better service for clients and prospects.

CIT Commercial Services is one of the nation's leading providers of factoring, credit protection, accounts receivable management and lending services to consumer product companies, manufacturers, dealers, importers and resellers.

Great Elm Capital Corp. (“we,” “us,” “our,” or “GECC”) (NASDAQ: GECC), a business development company, today announced that it has launched Great Elm Utica, LLC (“GEU”), a joint venture between GECC and Utica Leaseco, LLC (“Utica”), to co-invest in proprietary equipment financing transactions sourced by Utica.

Citizens announced today that its Commercial Real Estate Finance team is leading a $300 million construction loan to Atlanta-based Agile Cold Storage for the construction of new cold storage facilities as the company expands nationally. Citizens is Lead Left Arranger and Administrative Agent.

The company currently owns and operates two state-of-the-art, newly completed cold storage facilities in Cartersville, GA and Gainesville, GA.

Bank of America Business Capital announced that Jennifer Cann has joined as senior vice president and head of the Retail Finance Group Portfolio. Based in Boston, Jenn manages the ABL Retail Portfolio team responsible for credit, monitoring and strategic development. 

Voyager Aviation Holdings, LLC (“VAH”), a global full-service aircraft asset lessor and manager, announced the closing of a five-year senior secured warehouse facility with an initial committed amount of $500 million (“the Facility”).

Citibank, N.A. (“Citi”) acted as Global Coordinator and Co-Structuring Agent alongside Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (“Credit Suisse”) as Co-Structuring Agent. Citi and Credit Suisse both acted as Joint Lead Arrangers on the Facility. The initial syndicate of lenders also includes Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley.