Industry News
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.”
CIT Group Appoints Factoring Veteran for Southeastern Region
March 2, 2018CIT Group Inc. announced today the appointment of Jerry Younts, a factoring veteran, to its Commercial Services team.
According to Textile World, Younts will serve as Senior Business Development Officer. He will be responsible for offering factoring and asset-based financing services to furniture, textile, and floor covering manufacturers, among others, mostly in the Southeastern United States.
“CIT is continuing to build a best-in-class team to provide factoring and other financing options to Southeastern manufacturers and importers,” said Mike Hudgens, Southeast regional manager for CIT’s Commercial Services group. “We are pleased to welcome Jerry to our lineup of experts.”
The New York City-based public company also has a corporate office in Livingston, NJ and provides an array of financing alternatives including SBA loans and Syndicated loans.
Prior to CIT, Younts worked most recently as Senior Vice president at BB&T Commercial Finance in its factoring group. Before that, he was Senior Vice President at AdvanedAR, a Charlotte, NC-based AR company.
Yellowstone Capital Funded $51 Million in February
February 28, 2018A company email circulated by Yellowstone Capital on Wednesday said that they originated $51 million in funded deals for the month of February. That brings their 2018 YTD total to $111 million.
Yellowstone Capital is based in Jersey City, NJ.
Coral Capital Solutions Expands in the Midwest
February 26, 2018Coral Capital Solutions, which provides AR financing, among other financing solutions to small and mid-sized businesses, announced today that it is expanding its business in the Midwest. In this effort, the New York-based company has hired Bob Hinson as Regional Sales Manager, VP. Hinson will be based in Chicago and will be tasked with building Coral Capital’s relationship with community and regional banks, as well as lenders, workout groups, accountants, attorneys, financial advisors and other referral sources, the company indicated.
“Bob has a long and distinguished career within the factoring community,” said Jim Bertie, Chief Operating Officer of Coral Capital Solutions. “His expansive knowledge and management background will add considerable bench strength to our expanding Midwest client base, helping to educate and support businesses about the tremendous benefits in alternative funding,” he said.
Bertie told deBanked that the company doesn’t have a very large presence in the Midwest and that hiring Hinson is an effort to build business in that part of the country.
Prior to joining Coral Capita Solutions, which was founded in 2008, Hinson held senior level positions at factoring and asset based lending companies. Most recently, he worked as Vice President and Regional Sales Manager at Bay View Funding, a Chicago-based factoring company.
LendingTree 4Q & Full Year 2017 Earnings Released
February 24, 2018LendingTree reported its fourth quarter and full year 2017 results on Thursday. The company’s fourth quarter revenue of $161 million is an increase of 60 percent year-over-year. However, the fourth quarter adjusted net income per share was six cents shy of analysts’ expectations, which caused the company’s stock value to drop by eight percent after the report was released, according to CNBC.
Meanwhile, LendingTree’s GAAP Net Loss from Continuing Operations was $6.5 million. CEO and Chairman Doug Lebda said that this loss reflects a $9.1 million revaluation of the company’s deferred tax assets resulting from recent changes in the tax law that lower its overall tax rate. This, along with a one-time $10 million commitment to establish a charitable foundation.
“Given our recent success,” Lebda said, “we are pleased to be in a position to give back to the community through this foundation, and we look forward to sharing more details with our stakeholders as the foundation develops.”
Revenue for the full year 2017 was $617.7 million, an increase of $233.3 million, or a 61 percent increase over 2016 full year revenue.
“In addition to growing full-year revenue…” Lebda said, “ 2017 was transformational in several ways. We more than tripled our size in the strategically important and highly competitive credit card business [and] our mortgage business grew 25 percent year-over-year in a category where originations were down 17 percent according to industry estimates.”
BFS Capital Secures $175M Revolving Line
February 20, 2018
BFS Capital has secured a new $175 million revolving credit facility from funds managed by Ares Management, L.P. (NYSE:ARES), according to a company announcement. Stephens Inc. acted as financial advisor to the transaction.
ARES is one of the largest global alternative asset managers with $106.4 billion under management. They previously announced a $100 million line for LendingPoint, an online consumer lender.
BFS Capital also recently announced that 2017 was their biggest year yet. They generated more than $300 million in originations for the year.
BFS Capital plans to use the new facility to accelerate the growth of its lending business.
“The market continues to appreciate our small business customer focus,” said BFS Capital CEO Michael Marrache in a prepared statement. “Our strategic partners, such as ISOs, also commend us for our data and underwriting expertise—based on 15 years of financings across multiple economic cycles—which enables us to better anticipate the future performance of our financings.”
Abe Zeines, Jennie Villano ‘Cook Up’ Buzz
February 13, 2018Abe Zeines, of former MCA infamy, is cooking up something new, according to a video that was posted on LinkedIn earlier today. The 2-and-a-half minute clip was produced by Jennie Villano, a top social media marketer who serves as the VP of Business Development at Kalamata Advisors.
Villano was spotlighted for her notable online marketing acumen in a deBanked story last December.
In this for-fun video, Zeines appears to put spaghetti noodles into an empty pot.
Did he win the cooking challenge?
Behalf Secures $150 Million in Debt Capital
February 8, 2018
Behalf, the New York City-based alternative business loan company, obtained $150 million in debt financing this week from a private investment fund managed by Soros Fund Management LLC. Viola Credit also participated in the debt financing.
“This is a significant step forward for Behalf. This funding allows us to expand our fast-growing e-commerce B2B financing platform and enhance our ability to provide the best business terms to customers, in a fraction of the time of a traditional business lender,” said founder and CEO of Behalf, Benjy Feinberg.
The company, founded in 2012, initially started doing MCA only and is now transitioning to offer loans, according to Feinberg.
Behalf’s business model works in the same way as a credit card. The small business customer doesn’t receive money from Behalf. Instead, Behalf pays the vendor of its small business customer directly, and then the customer pays Behalf. Customers pay different rates depending on their risk profile.
As an analogy for the business model, Feinberg told deBanked: “If you give a kid $50,000, he could go to Vegas. If you give the college $50,000, the kid goes and gets an education.”
With Behalf’s transition into loans, the company partnered with FinWise Bank, a Utah-chartered bank, in August of last year. Behalf, which also has an office in Tel Aviv, has a virtual MasterCard feature that allows its customers to use their Behalf credit line to fund purchases across the MasterCard network.
The company has a total headcount of about 90 between its two offices, according to Feinberg.
