Ian Koplin,
Editor,
Monitor

During his more than 40 years in the industry, Dave Fate, CEO and co-founder of Stonebriar Commercial Finance, has maneuvered through challenging economic cycles, industry transformations and multiple companies. His entire career has been about structuring financing solutions that support and shape businesses of all types and collateral. These transactions have a material impact on the communities and people that those customers serve.

He credits his father and a banker’s shiny shoes for igniting his interest in finance. Fate is no stranger to hard work. He grew up on a farm in North Central Kansas and did not stray too far from home until he graduated college. “Growing up on a farm is hard work, but education was important in my family,” Fate says. “Reading was an important thing around our house. My dad, who was an electrical engineer, made sure I read the newspaper and other materials.”

Fate describes his first valuable lesson of finance: “Always read before you sign anything,” his father said. At age 14, Fate went with his dad to meet a local banker and to sign documents for a $400 loan to purchase cattle and hog feed. Excited about his first business deal, Fate went right for the dotted line, but his dad snatched the pen from his hand and said, “Dave, don’t you ever sign a document without first reading it.” Despite the jargon-laden note making little sense to a 14-year-old, he read the entire document twice, signed it and received the funds. When Fate was later sent back to the bank to repay the note, he made a mental note of the interest paid to the bank with what seemed like little effort.

That transaction ignited a life-long passion for understanding money and banking which eventually guided him to a career in finance.

A Rolling Stone

After college in 1982, Fate accepted a job with CIT in Wichita, KS. His first mentor was Bill Stanisich, who took Fate under his wing. Fate spent considerable time on the road covering half of Kansas and all of Oklahoma. He was in his element. Fate met customers, inspected collateral, attended sheriff’s sales and was even chased off more than one property while repossessing defaulted collateral.

“Those early years were invaluable in laying the foundation of my career,” Fate says. He rose through the ranks to credit manager and CIT transferred him to Dallas in the mid-1980s. But his career soon took a new turn, which was the beginning of a more than 30-year run with many of the same team moving together through four different companies.

“I had been in Dallas for a year when a mutual customer of CIT and ITT Capital Finance introduced me to Bill Farrell. ITT had made the decision to bring in a new management team and had named Bill Farrell to lead that effort. I was 28 years old and I think Bill was 34 and we hit it off immediately. He convinced me to join ITT and help him execute a new strategy. He became a close friend and mentor. He has taught me a lot over all these years and is the one most responsible for changing the trajectory of my career.”

Soon thereafter, Fate met Steve White, another key person in his career path who was an integral part of GE Capital’s capital markets operation at the time. “Steve and I began doing lots of business together and soon became fast friends,” Fate says. “Our efforts paid off when ITT was later sold to GE Capital.”

Fate and Farrell soon launched a de novo start-up, Transamerica Equipment Financial Services, which grew to a balance sheet of $3.2 billion over the next 10 years. After selling the company (again to GE Capital), Fate and Farrell took the same team plus a few more recruits and established AIG Commercial Equipment Finance in late 2004.

“Through the years, Bill taught me numerous things like how to manage a P&L, find new revenue sources and efficiently manage both the left and right sides of the balance sheet,” Fate says. “Bill retired post financial crisis when AIG pivoted to focusing on originating assets for its core insurance company businesses.”

In the spring of 2015, Fate and core members of the AIG team, plus a few more first round draft picks, found a new sponsor with a reliable source of capital and launched Stonebriar Commercial Finance.

Around the same time, Fate met Nick Sandler who simultaneously was launching a business aviation platform with Eldridge. “One year later we put the two companies together and have never looked back,” Fate says. “With over $5.7 billion of assets today and driven by an executive leadership team including Nick Sandler, Steve White and Jeff Wilkison, we have built the largest independent commercial finance and leasing company in the U.S.”

No End in Sight

“My wife says I’m the luckiest guy in the world,” Fate says with beaming pride. “I love what I do. I have an extreme passion for it. I have zero interest in retiring. I always say, retire to what? Everything that I am exposed to daily continues to energize and drive that belief.”

Fate describes his approach to each deal as an opportunity to learn, a value instilled in him by his father. “There are so many things you get exposed in this industry by just taking every meeting you can. New customers, competitors, multiple types of essential assets, strategic partners, including lawyers, bankers who provide our capital and other specialists in the industry.” Fate continues, “I have had the opportunity to develop relationships and work with brilliant business leaders — many of whom run companies or have managed large divisions of companies with very recognizable names. That is the magic in this business for me. One never stops learning”.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Ian Koplin is an editor of Monitor.