How One CEO Unified Two Companies with Different Cultures on Different Coasts
March 21, 2018
Company mergers, like marriages, have their pros and cons. Some are more successful than others and many say it’s unwise to rush into one. This is certainly the approach Adam Stettner adopted when he, as CEO of San Diego, CA-based Reliant Funding, oversaw the merger of his company with Merchants Capital Access, based in Melville, NY on Long Island.
At the time of the merger in April 2015, Merchants Capital Access was an MCA funder. According to Stettner, they were what he considered a “back end” as they didn’t do marketing or sales. They did underwriting and funding, but they did not originate any new business.
Reliant Funding, which Stettner led, did almost the inverse. While it did some cursory underwriting, it mostly marketed and sold funding to small businesses. It would also package small business merchants and place them for appropriate funding. But they did not fund directly. So, it seems, these two companies made for a perfect marriage. They completed each other. But not so fast.
Even though Stettner had considerable experience working as a direct lender in the student loan business prior to taking the helm at Reliant Funding in 2008, he didn’t feel ready to dive into funding a different type of client. (Stettner said he originated and held on his balance sheet $15 billion in student loans at National Lending Associates, a San Diego company he co-founded.)
“I felt like it was easy for somebody to come into the [merchant advance] space and start writing checks and funding businesses,” Stettner said. “It’s hard to figure out how to get that money back. So instead of jumping in with both feet, I thought it would be wise to really understand our target demographic, our end user, the small business owner.”
So while the technical merger of Reliant Funding and Merchants Capital Access happened in April 2015, the newly enlarged entity operated as two distinct brands until September 2017.
During this period, Stettner said, “we were studying everybody’s credit models and the best way to approach American small business owners, the best way to fund them, the best way to service them, and ultimately, the best way to renew them.”
This roughly two year period between the time of the actual merger and the official fusion of the two companies, now simply called Reliant Funding, was not just for Stettner to learn about funding small businesses. A lot more needed to happen to sync together a southern California company and a New York City-area company, each with different corporate cultures, attitudes and ways of getting work done.
“Getting 150 people with different views on work, culture, approach and strategy wasn’t easy,” Stettner said. “But it was definitely worthwhile and it was a lot of fun. There were times, of course, when it was frustrating as well.”
The stereotype of southern California being more laid back doesn’t hold up, according to Stettner, who grew up in New York and has worked in southern California for 14 years.
“While the environment may be laid back in appearance, the effort that’s put forth and the intensity that exists in the southern California office is no less than what you see out from our New York office,” Stettner said. “Both work incredibly hard and have great attitudes.”
However, he did say that the original culture in the New York office (formerly the Merchants Capital Access office) was much more centered around management decisions and Stettner made a point of bringing a culture of empowerment to that office.
What does that look like exactly?
“We talk [with employees] not only about the top line numbers, but also the bottom line numbers with the idea of empowering everyone,” Stettner said. “It’s important to me that everybody knows the why behind what we do. If people understand why we do something, it’s easier for them to get behind it, and they’re better equipped to offer an opinion that can help get us there faster.”
Now as Reliant Funding, Stettner said that the company is fully integrated under the one brand with unified systems and technology. The company is a funder with a sales team focused on direct origination. It also continues to grow what Stettner calls the wholesale channel or broker channel.
How A New Hampshire Teen Launched A Lending Company And Climbed Into The Inc. 500
March 17, 2018Josh Feinberg was not a complete newbie when he started in the lending business in 2009, but he also had a long way to go to find success. His dad had been in the business for 15 years and shortly after graduating high school, Josh started to work in equipment financing and leasing at Direct Capital in New Hampshire, his home state. He then had a brief stint working remotely for Balboa Capital, but he wasn’t sure that finance was for him.
He was 19, with a three year old daughter, and he took a low paying job working at a New Hampshire pawn shop owned by his brother and a guy named Will Murphy.
“I was making $267 a week at the pawn shop and I was having to ask friends to help me pay my rent for a room,” Feinberg said. “So at that point, I realized that something needed to change.”
One day, while working at the pawn shop, Feinberg saw a Facebook post from a restaurant owner in search of financing for equipment. With a background in financing, he said to himself: “I wonder if I could take an application and bring it to one of the sources I know and they could pay me a commission?’”
That question prompted Feinberg to present to his brother and Murphy the idea to start a finance company. Feinberg said he drew up a business plan in a day and a half and his brother and Murphy agreed to give him $3,000 to start the company. That was November of 2012.
“They gave me a spot down in the basement of their shop, which was anywhere from 47 to 52 degrees,” Feinberg said. “I had my jacket, my computer and I was making 400 calls a day.”
After three months of not funding any deals, Feinberg said he almost gave up. He was also focused mainly on the equipment finance market because that’s all he really knew.
“Then come to find out that I talked to somebody that had a need for working capital and I realized that I could find sources [for] capital,” Feinberg said.
So he worked with a few different sources to find capital for this client. The deal went through in 24 hours and it paid about $7,000 in commission.
“I didn’t have any money and I was like, ‘this is awesome,’” Feinberg said. “So I [kept] making 400 calls a day, knowing that this could potentially change my life.”
And it did. After a year, Feinberg’s company, Everlasting Capital, made $110,000 in commissions and $3.5 million in volume. Within that first year, he also hired three people and moved from the basement of the pawn shop in Rochester, NH to a 600 square foot office in the same town. (The current office is also in Rochester, but in a larger space.)
This lightning fast trajectory is by no means common. That’s why Everlasting Capital made it onto 2017’s Inc. 500 list, the iconic list of America’s fastest growing private companies. By year two, Everlasting Capital earned $640,000 in commissions, generating $14 million in volume, and by year three it earned $1.6 million in commissions with $18 million in volume. Ultimately, over a three year period ending in 2016, Everlasting Capital experienced 1,361 percent growth, placing them at No. 323 on the Inc. 500 list.
How did they do it? Feinberg said that creating a company and an office environment that employees enjoy is really critical, as is recognizing employees for their hard work.
“As long as we hit our goals which we have every year,” Feinberg said, “we take our company on a trip at the end of each year.” (Trips have included Las Vegas and Puerto Rico.)
More specifically, Feinberg said that the company’s success had a lot to do with building relationships with senior level people at top funding companies like Pearl Capital and BFS Capital. These relationships gave them higher [approved] volume, better buy rates and the ability to pay out good commissions to ISOs.
“This opened up a whole new aspect of our company,” Feinberg said. “Now, in addition to working with direct clients, we had an ISO division as well.”
But Feinberg said he wanted to create a reputable company to ensure that ISOs could feel comfortable working with them, knowing that Everlasting Capital was not backdooring their deals. So they created a portal for ISOs, called EverHub, which allows them to track their deals at every step along the way.
“We had to think outside the box to come up with a platform that was completely transparent and made it viable to work with another broker to get deals done,” Feinberg said.
There have definitely been hurdles along the way – most notably, employee retention.
“We hired and fired about 20 people in the second year,” Feinberg said. “We wanted to see if quantity would increase sales. Come to find out, it’s more quality than quantity.”
Partnership has been another challenge. The leadership team at Everlasting Capital is now Feinberg and Murphy. Feinberg’s brother, who was Murphy’s initial partner at the pawn shop (which has since been sold), is no longer involved in it.
Feinberg said that what makes for a good partnership is communication, early and often. And being able to hold partners accountable for different responsibilities.
“Partnerships are tough in business – they tend to get a little hairy, a little crazy at times,” Murphy said.
“Like myself and Josh, we have some different views on a lot of different things, but we take our different views and we meld them together to provide the best outcome for our employees and all the people we work with. Some may see that as a downside, but it’s actually a real strength.”
Merchant Advance Capital Closes $30 Million Debt Facility
March 15, 2018
Canadian Merchant Advance Capital closed a $30 million debt facility from Comvest Credit Partners today.
“This is giving us significant runway,” Merchant Advance Capital CEO David Gens told deBanked. “For the next 12 months in particular, we’ve got great visibility as far as where our incremental capital is going to come from. This will allow us to focus less on fundraising and more on just building the business.”
Founded in 2010, Merchant Advance Capital offers several small business financing products including fixed term loans and business lines of credit. It also provides something called “The Good Cents Loan,” which Gens said he would like see more applicants for.
These loans are designed for businesses “that will positively impact the community or environment around them,” according to the company website. They require a more thorough application and the entrepreneur needs to convey to Merchant Advance Capital how the funds will help further their more socially or environmentally responsible cause. The company has only made a few of these loans which Gens said do not make money because the rates are so low.
This is the largest facility Merchant Advance Capital has gotten to date. However, Gens said that the business is primarily equity funded so that even as the business uses this new debt facility, it will still have more equity than debt.
Merchant Advance Capital generates most of its business through ISOs and partners and has two offices, one in Vancouver and the other in Toronto. Of about 50 employees, two-thirds work at the company headquarters in Vancouver.
Lendio Opens Franchise in Charlotte, NC
March 15, 2018
Today, Lendio announced the opening of its latest franchise in Charlotte, NC. Through the Lendio franchise program, Chris Cronk will help local businesses in the community apply for loans, review their options and secure funding.
The company has a network of over 75 lenders and its funding options include SBA loans, startup loans, equipment loans, commercial real estate loans and more. In the last fiscal year alone, Lendio facilitated more than $300 million in funding, according to the company.
“I’ve worked with numerous companies and witnessed their struggles to find capital,” said Cronk, who was a former investment banker for Bank of America Merrill Lynch where he advised and facilitated financing for companies of all sizes. “Charlotte is a fast-growing market and community. I’m excited to be a part of that growth by helping businesses in every industry find funding.”
Google Will Ban Cryptocurrency Ads
March 14, 2018Today, Google updated its list of banned advertising content to include “cryptocurrencies and related content (including but not limited to initial coin offerings, cryptocurrency exchanges, cryptocurrency wallets, and cryptocurrency trading advice).”
This comes as Facebook made the same decision at the end of January. While Facebook’s prohibition of cryptocurrency-related ads came into effect immediately, the Google ban will not begin until this June.
The value of Bitcoin dropped by 9.1 percent in the wake of this news. Critics contend that this overarching ban may hurt the legitimate use of cryptocurrencies, while crypto detractors are pleased that cryptocurrency fraud will soon be significantly restricted.
In June, Google will also prohibit ads related to Binary options, a type of financial contract that promises either a fixed amount of compensation or nothing at all.
The Underwriters – How A Small Team Is Turning Underwriting Into Big Business
March 13, 2018
A keen eye can spot a good deal. And for New York-based Central Diligence Group, an underwriting-focused company founded in 2015 by four partners, it has been a boon for business. The company has lately been providing its underwriting expertise to a wider variety of clients, including some outside the MCA space.
“We started to gear towards a more underwriting-centric model [where] a deal would come in, we underwrite it once, we assess the risk, we determine what box it would fall under and where it would qualify, and depending on what that pedigree of information [was], we would essentially [fulfill] the full underwriting [job,]” said Nick Gregory, one of the founding partners at Central Diligence.
Initially, the company provided underwriting services mostly to smaller funders, syndication brokers and ISO clients that service MCA merchants in the construction and trucking businesses, among others. But close to three years later, its roster of clients is far more diverse.
Over the past six to eight months, Central Diligence has been working with a west coast-based credit card processing company with a portfolio of over 100,000 clients, according to Andrew Hernandez, another Central Diligence partner. The credit card processing company has just built out its own MCA product, but they don’t have an underwriting team, which is where Central Diligence comes in. Hernandez said that this company, the identity of whom he could not disclose, just renewed its contract with them.
Another unique client is an institutional investor, with offices in New York and Dallas, that just formalized a new working relationship with Central Diligence over the last week to go beyond just underwriting and into the realm of funding and servicing. According to Hernandez, this client is looking to make investments in MCA at the higher end of the market.
“In our space, $50,000 to $250,000 is pretty easy to come by, but $250,000 to $1 million, not so much,” Hernandez said. “So they see that there’s a gap with small businesses…and they’re using us to do [due] diligence [on companies.]”
Finally, Central Diligence is finishing an agreement with another unconventional client, an overseas mortgage company with interest in MCA. According to Hernandez, it is looking to execute a kind of beta test in the U.S. and then take the business model to Europe if it works.
In addition to the four founding partners, who work as underwriters, there are four additional underwriters and two junior underwriters for a total of ten on staff.
Hernandez attributes these new opportunities to the reputation they have built in the MCA space, including the 10+ years of experience that each of the founding partners have.
“Because of our experience and history in the space, a lot of our relationships have been built because of our credibility,” Hernandez said. “That’s the most important.”
OnDeck CFO Moves On After 10 Years
March 13, 2018OnDeck announced yesterday that its CFO, Howard Katzenberg, would be leaving on March 26th and is being replaced by Kenneth A. Brause. An OnDeck spokesperson told deBanked that Katzenberg’s departure is completely amicable.
“[Katzenberg] is still a young man and he’s looking to make the next mark in his career,” the spokesperson said.
Katzenberg started with OnDeck in 2008 as one of its first employees. He will stay on as an advisor through the middle of April to guarantee a smooth transition. Brause, his replacement, has more than 30 years of experience in the financial services industry and currently works as Executive Vice President & Treasurer at CIT Group.
Thinking Capital Acquired by Canadian Finance Firm Purpose Financial
March 12, 2018
Thinking Capital, a leader in the fintech lending industry in Canada, was acquired last week by Canadian finance company, Purpose Financial, based in Toronto.
“Under the Purpose Financial umbrella, our time to market on product innovation and funding capacity will be greatly amplified,” said Jeff Mitelman, CEO and co-founder of Thinking Capital.
Mitelman, who co-founded Thinking Capital in 2006, has long been an advocate for improving the way small business credit is evaluated and communicated in Canada.
“The challenge in Canada is that our lending institutions historically either don’t lend to small business or don’t lend to enough of our small businesses,” Mitelman told deBanked. “And that’s driven by the fact that so many of the measures of small business credit worthiness simply don’t exist. Our credit bureaus don’t report on it, there aren’t metrics or scores unique to small business, and most significantly, small business credit has never been attached to retail or institutional conduits for funding.”
This is where Purpose Financial comes in. Mitelman believes that Purpose Financial’s investment arm and its relationship with Omers, a large Canadian pension fund, will provide small businesses with “access to conduits that historically small businesses have never been able to access.”
Thinking Capital provides an MCA product, which it calls Flexible, as well as a term product, which it calls Fixed. It also helps power loans provided by large companies like Staples.
Purpose Financial has three verticals: Investment Management (retail and institutional), Digital Technology, and Capital / Funding.
“Thinking Capital is a clear leader in the small to medium-sized business lending space…” said Som Seif, CEO of Purpose Financial. “[And] this acquisition brings together leading origination, asset management, and technology platforms as a unified entity, and enables us to bolster our product capabilities and optimize the technology, distribution, and funding model of our combined business.”
