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. Thank you to Rhett Rowe and Charlie Perer, guest editors of this issue of TSL, for their assistance.

Please provide readers a little background on your companies and yourselves.

ROWE: At present, Great Lakes Business Credit is in its 20th year of business. We’re a privately held, non-bank focused in the Eastern and Central US time zones, offering up to $6 million credit commitments to impaired operating companies which have quality accounts receivable.

We additionally accommodate advances on inventory, machinery & equipment as well as owner-occupied commercial real estate. One of our competitive advantages is that we are nimble. We field of team of in-house fi eld examiners, generally closing/funding within 21 to 30 days of proposal acceptance. Secondarily, we have zero termination (prepayment penalty) structures. We offer every credit facility on a discretionary demand-note basis with one-year maturities. Our historical average tenor is 22 months and we extend beyond the initial 12 months routinely. Our pure mission is to bridge the gap of our clients to their next lower-cost solution, oftentimes a conventional bank.

We follow our bank group’s prohibited and restricted industry type list. At times we are asked if we dabble in cannabis or other industry types which banks will not finance. We pass on non-bankable transactions as we look to banks, in general, to be our takeout source.

FUSSELL: Aegis Business Credit is a commercial finance company based in Tampa, Florida. We are celebrating our 15-year anniversary this month. Aegis provides factoring, asset-based loans, inventory and purchase order financing to lower middle market companies across the United States with a focus on the Southeast. We also have two sister companies, Aegis Real Estate Capital, which provides real estate bridge loans, and Aegis Venture Fund, which can provide more flexible capital structures for early-stage companies, oftentimes in the software and technology space.

TRAMMELL: Southeastern was founded in 1996 in Birmingham, Alabama. We are a very traditional non-bank ABL lender. Over the past 25 years we’ve evolved a bit into more of an asset-based lender for banks without asset-based departments. We do transactions from $2 to $40 million, often we will lead and a bank who brings it to us will participate. We will manage the credit and share the risk. And that’s been a very good business model for us.

Our footprint is south of the Ohio River, east of the Mississippi and Tampa, Florida. We were recently acquired in March of 2022 by one of our partner banks, Renaissance Bank, which is a $17-million commercial bank with offices in six southern states headquartered in Tupelo, Mississippi. We continue to operate as Southeastern Commercial along the same business model.

CLEVELAND: Access Business Finance was co-founded in 1996 by Doug McDonald and me. We are celebrating our 26th year in business. We are a senior secured asset-based lender. The majority of our balance sheet is made up of lines of credit secured by accounts receivable and inventory. We also are very active in interest-only bridge real estate lending and often combine our real estate lending capabilities to provide additional borrowing under operating lines of credit. As well, we do equipment lending where we have lines of credit exposure. Our loan amounts range up to $20,000,000 to as low as $300,000 and our footprint in national. Before we fund any deal either Doug McDonald or I will visit the borrower at their location; this really helps the process for us and our clients.

LEACH: Founded in 1987, Lighthouse passed the 35-year mark in May. We are very proud of this accomplishment and owe our longevity to terrific business and referral partners, the quality of our team, and the service we provide. Lighthouse is a traditional asset-based lender providing working capital lines of credit and term loans against machinery and equipment in the $1,000,000 to $5,000,000 range and occasionally larger with participants.

Based in Greensboro, North Carolina, our geographic footprint covers the Eastern and Central time zones, or the eastern half of the country. Lighthouse provides loans for growth and expansion, refinancing and financial restructuring, business turnarounds, mergers, acquisitions, partner/shareholder buyouts, and debtor-in-possession financing. Lighthouse is widely recognized for its creative loan structuring, rapid credit evaluation and approvals, expedited loan closing schedules, and superior service.

Please click here to read the entire article.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in TSL Express' featured articles are solely the views of the author and do not represent the views or position of the Secured Finance Network.