Castlelake Partners with Aequum Capital to Establish Specialty Lending Platform

MINNEAPOLIS and CHICAGO, July 28, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- 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.

The platform, which will operate under the Aequum brand, will leverage Castlelake's asset experience and the significant sector knowledge of the Aequum team to offer comprehensive lending solutions that seek to address borrowers' needs for working capital, growth, acquisitions, recapitalizations, turnarounds and other situations. Typical loan sizes are expected to range from $1 million to $10 million and span a wide variety of industries.

"In today's environment, we believe it is increasingly challenging for small- and medium-sized businesses to find the financing and capital solutions they need from traditional bank channels," said Matt Little, Partner, Global Specialty Finance and Head of Business Development at Castlelake. "We're pleased to partner with the experienced Aequum team to expand our reach to these borrowers while offering our investors interesting exposure to an income-oriented, asset-rich investment pipeline." 

Aequum was founded by specialty finance veterans John Stanfield, Orasio Becerra, Michael Keenan, John Ross and Rick Kaufmann, whose collective professional experience includes working within banking institutions, family offices, and specialty finance companies.

In a joint statement, the Aequum principals expressed their motivation to launch the platform with Castlelake: "Together, we founded Aequum Capital under three guiding principles: First, we believe we can provide a necessary service to an underserved segment of the market through our long-standing relationships and knowledge of the industry; second, we are committed to creating a firm with a culture of execution that allows us to offer flexibility while maintaining a core emphasis on credit; and third, we are focused on bringing together the individual skillsets of top talent to work in a quick and efficient manner."

Castlelake has completed over $3 billion of specialty finance investments since 2015, including a recent agreement to acquire up to $400 million of diversified equipment loan and lease receivables. Its specialty finance activity has also included acquiring or financing more than 3,500 commercial and industrial loans and over 5 million consumer receivable accounts. Castlelake launched its Asset-backed Direct Lending strategy in 2020 and has since provided nearly $6 billion in loans to borrowers.

About Castlelake

Castlelake, L.P. is a global alternative investment manager focused on investments in real assets, specialty finance and aviation across the risk spectrum, from value-oriented to income and investment grade credit. Founded in 2005, Castlelake manages approximately $21 billion of assets. The Castlelake team comprises more than 250 experienced professionals, including 95 investment professionals, across six offices in North America, Europe and Asia. For more information, please visit https://www.castlelake.com/.

About Aequum

Aequum is a commercial lending platform focused on providing efficient financing solutions to lower middle market companies that are typically ineligible for traditional bank financing. The Aequum approach centers on cost competitiveness and consultation to help borrowers advance on a path to traditional bank financing over time. Through its experienced team of specialty finance experts, its robust entrepreneur resource network and its proprietary technologies, process engineering and methodologies, Aequum strives to enable accelerated, dynamic and better business outcomes. For more information, visit https://aequumcapital.com/.

Contact

Castlelake Media Relations
Molly Blemker
+1 612 851 3083
media.relations@castlelake.com

Prosek Partners for Castlelake

Josh Clarkson / Remy Marin
+1 212 279 3115
jclarkson@prosek.com / rmarin@prosek.com

Aequum Capital

Chief Revenue Officer
Michael Keenan
+1 312 971 1809
michaelkeenan@aequumcapital.com