Powerhouse Leadership and Support

Assembling a top-level strategic leadership team was critical to the success of this new platform according to Salter, who will be serving as Chairman of EBC and point person from the board working with Battaglia and his team.  “Paul Bossidy, William Brasser and Jason Wolff will also be playing similar roles – providing Marty and his team with a sounding board, strategic support, access to our respective networks of relationships, helping scale the platform by evaluating potential M&A and corporate development opportunities, and finally we will ensure we have the appropriate amount of capital to scale the company. Marty and his team will be running the business on a day-to-day basis, and I plan to stay out of their way and provide them support to accomplish their goals. Oaktree is a significant player and will also be actively involved in helping us grow the platform,” said Salter.

We also had an opportunity to speak with Paul Bossidy to elicit his insights into the current commercial finance landscape and the gap EBC will fill in the market.  According to Bossidy, EBC will fill a critical role in the market, saying, “Banks have been moving away from the target market that EBC will be focusing on driven by regulatory changes and a more constrained credit box. There are a tremendous number of companies in the $15 million to $250 million revenue size that do not qualify for traditional bank financing where EBC will be able to play a meaningful role. Although there are a number of players in our target market, the competitive landscape is not as crowded as the traditional bank space. In addition, some of these players have started to move up market in deal size, have higher return hurdles and do not have the same product capabilities as EBC. Another key differentiator for EBC is its board and management. The team has significant domain expertise and operating experience through numerous economic cycles. Additionally our partnership with Oaktree provides another layer of expertise and access to capital.”

For insights into the risk management side of the business, we tapped William Brasser for his thoughts on how EBC will balance the need to build portfolio without sacrificing on prudent credit underwriting.  Staying focused will be the key to EBC’s success according to Brasser, who said, “EBC has a well-defined product strike zone for the ABL space and its board and management has significant experience building and growing a number of different businesses. Staying focused on our product strike zone, target market and maintaining a disciplined underwriting and portfolio management approach through the cycle will allow us to grow in a prudent manner. Our team will be staffed with industry professionals that have significant expertise in the ABL space. EBC will have rigorous operating routines for screening and approving new business and managing the portfolio. In addition, our borrowers will be providing us with detailed information on their performance on a weekly, monthly and quarterly basis allowing us to react quickly, if required.”

In order to succeed, a lender must provide relevant products that are competitively priced according to Battaglia, who concludes by saying, “We are looking for this lending group to be around for a long time, so we must consistently present products that are relevant to our target market, and we need to maintain an efficient process – starting with our upfront marketing efforts including screening, all way to the close of the deal. Ultimately we must deliver on what we promise.”