Axos Bank, the banking subsidiary of Axos Financial, announced the acquisition of 100% of the membership interests in Verdant Commercial Capital, an independent equipment leasing company with approximately $1.1 billion of loans and leases on its balance sheet at Aug. 31, 2025, including approximately $750 million of on-balance sheet securitizations and $350 million of loans and leases.
Verdant originates small to mid-ticket leases between $50,000 and $5 million nationwide in six specialized industry verticals. Verdant offers a full suite of products, including equipment finance leases, conditional sale leases, fair market value (FMV) leases and terminal rental adjustment clause (TRAC) leases.
“This acquisition provides us with more scale and enhances our existing equipment leasing business with good risk-adjusted returns,” stated Greg Garrabrants, President and CEO of Axos Financial. “We like Verdant’s specialization in vendor-based equipment leasing and believe we can scale this business profitably. Additionally, we see opportunities to cross-sell commercial deposits and floorplan lending to manufacturers and dealers in several industry verticals such as specialty vehicles, golf, sports and entertainment. After replacing their high-cost funding with our lower-cost deposit funding and growing new originations, we expect the transaction to be accretive to earnings per share by approximately 2%-3% in fiscal 2026 and 5%-6% in fiscal 2027.”
Axos will pay a 10% premium on Verdant’s book value at closing. The projected initial purchase price of $43.5 million, including a $4 million premium to book value, will be paid in cash at closing. The seller can earn incremental performance-based cash considerations over a four-year period after close if VCC generates a return on equity (“ROE”) above 15%. The total earn-out is capped at $50 million.
Axos and the seller signed a member interest purchase agreement on Sept. 19, 2025. Keefe, Bruyette and Woods, a Stifel Company, acted as the exclusive financial advisor to Verdant in the transaction. The Company expects to close the transaction on Sept. 30, 2025.
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