Investment funds advised by Wafra, the $30 billion New York City-based alternative asset manager, agreed in June to acquire Navitas Credit from United Community Bank (UCB) for approximately $1.9 billion in cash in a deal that closed in September. Navitas will continue to be led by its current management team, and the transaction comes with $1 billion in additional financing capacity, backed by Bank of America and Wells Fargo.
For Navitas CEO Mike Bruman, the deal resolves a structural constraint that had been building for years.
Founded in 2008, Navitas grew steadily through multiple credit cycles, reporting over $1.0B in originations in 2025.
“It’s a really great engine,” Bruman says. “And it really starts with all the great people.”
A Capital Structure Navitas Outgrew
Navitas operated as a subsidiary of UCB for the past eight years, a relationship Bruman describes as a good partnership. UCB, he says, largely let Navitas run independently — preserving its brand, its name and its day-to-day operations rather than folding it into the bank.
“They allowed us to maintain our identity, which is great,” Bruman said.
The issue, Bruman says, was growth. Navitas continued to expand, pushing it towards roughly 10% of the bank’s total assets — a level UCB wanted to stay under. To manage that constraint, Navitas turned to selling portfolios in the marketplace, an approach Bruman said wasn’t the most efficient way to keep growing.
“We had to do something,” he says. That search led to Wafra, which Bruman says offers access to capital markets structures — including the asset-backed securities market Navitas has tapped before — that will let the company keep growing without running into the same balance-sheet limits.
Why Wafra
Bruman said Wafra stood out among several interested parties for two main reasons: its familiarity with the equipment finance industry, and its commitment to keeping Navitas’s team and culture intact.
“We all got here together, we all go together,” Bruman says of his staff. Wafra, he says, made clear it bought the platform, the business and the people for what they can deliver — not to take over day-to-day operations. “Their only goal is to make us bigger, better and stronger and provide the capital needs and resources that allow us to do that.”
Deploying New Capacity
With the added financing capacity now in hand, Bruman said Navitas’s priorities remain rooted in its existing referral, where deal sizes range from roughly $1,000 to $5 million. Supporting Vendors and Intermediaries that refer customers to Navitas — and delivering a strong experience for the end borrowers — remains the top priority, he says.
The new capital also opens a door Navitas hasn’t used in its eight years under UCB: acquisitions. Bruman says the company, which has grown entirely organically under bank ownership, is now positioned to pursue management teams that are the right cultural fit and share its approach to customer service.
Asked how Navitas will protect underwriting discipline and culture as it scales, Bruman says credit discipline is embedded across the organization, not confined to a single department. “It’s working together in concert to do the right thing, and that builds long-term, strong relationships,” he says. “I don’t see much changing. It’s just an amplification of what we currently do.”
On portfolio risk, Bruman says Navitas manages exposure strategically by sector, geography and equipment type, keeping minimal exposure to cyclical areas such as long-haul trucking. The company came off its best year in 2025, he says, and has carried that momentum into 2026 as small and midsize businesses continue investing in equipment and technology to become more efficient.
Betting on AI
Bruman also points to artificial intelligence as a growing part of Navitas’s underwriting and servicing strategy. With nearly two decades of portfolio data, he says the company is partnering with technology providers to put that history to use.
“The greatest thing about these large language models is they never forget,” Bruman says. “They know how a deal performed, and they provide 80 other examples that performed similarly.” He calls the technology a complement to — not a replacement for — Navitas’s sales, credit and portfolio management teams, predicting it will prove “game-changing” for efficiency and quality over time.
Measuring Success
Asked what success would look like five years from now, Bruman measures it from the customer up, not from the top of the org chart down. A good borrower experience drives repeat business and referrals from partners, he says, which in turn fuels growth for Navitas’s employees. Based on the company’s current growth trajectory, Bruman expects Navitas to roughly double in size over the next five years.
“I think Navitas is a unicorn,” he says. “There aren’t many Navitas out there, and I’m excited about the opportunities that are ahead of us.”
Rita Garwood is editor in chief of Monitor.
