Pawnee Leasing, a subsidiary of Chesswood Group, closed its first marketed U.S. securitization of its prime receivables. Proceeds from the $254 million securitization will be used to pay down Pawnee’s recently renewed revolving warehouse line and to reduce the outstanding balance of Chesswood’s recently renewed senior revolving credit facility.

“This is an important milestone in the growth of our U.S. business and the expansion and improvement of our treasury resources as our prime portfolio, the largest segment of our portfolio, continues its excellent growth,” said Barry Shafran, Chesswood’s president and CEO. “The securitization market has provided us with a significant improvement in our cost-of-funds on the securitized receivables, improving our finance margins on this segment of our portfolio by at least 100 basis points. As our portfolio approaches the $1 billion milestone, a better cost-of-funds is a key component in helping drive our future growth.”

Early in the year, Chesswood launched Tandem Finance, the company’s new U.S. equipment finance business. Tandem operates in the industry’s largest market segment, the vendor channel. Serving equipment manufacturers, dealers and distributors and headquartered in Houston, Tandem is led by a team of industry veterans and is off to a quick start. From start-up to $5 million in monthly originations in just seven months of operating, Tandem is on track to meet or exceed expectations for 2019 while setting the table for excellent growth in 2020.

“Tandem actually began operating in January and originated its first transaction late in February, after considerable build-out of its team and infrastructure, including our vendor portal,” said Shafran. “Tandem can conduct all of its business digitally, including electronic documents, or more conventionally, depending on the preference of its vendor-clients and their customers.”

Tandem offers the vendor channel a superior value proposition in being able to adjudicate and fund transactions in all credit tiers, from prime through “C” without selling non-prime transactions to other funders, as most competitors do in this market segment.

“We have a truly unique and compelling offering and I am thrilled to be able to take our online capabilities and full credit suite to this large market,” said Mike Sheehan, Tandem president.