Orenstein: I’m fortunate in having both finance company and bank experience as I can extrapolate the best practices from both sides of the equipment finance industry and bring those best practices to HVB and create new best practices. So my breadth of experience helps me to better understand the challenges in implementing the best policies and procedures and starting off on the best footing.
I recently left Sterling National Bank where I ran the marketing side of the equipment finance business for over nineteen years. During my tenure at Sterling we grew the small ticket portfolio to roughly $340 million and created a nationwide operation focused on small ticket and lower middle market business. It was an excellent training ground and a tremendous opportunity to understand the inner workings within a bank, providing me the hands on experiences required to launch a de-novo leasing subsidiary for a like-sized bank.
Equipment Finance Advisor: What attracted you to this opportunity with HVB versus other bank and non-bank equipment finance opportunities?
Orenstein: Meeting with Steve and understanding his approach, philosophy and vision really enabled me to cross the bridge quickly to want to be a part of this organization. I think that today, Hudson Valley Bank is a different bank than it was years ago, and a year or two from now it will be different than what it looks like today, and it’s exciting to be a part of that process.
Equipment Finance Advisor: According to the press release, this unit will operate out of New York City and you will be joined by a seasoned team of sales and key support personnel. Please tell us a bit about your team.
Orenstein: Steve and I discussed this launch and decided to build a de novo operation around a nucleus of available professionals. I brought a seasoned professional with me who has been in commercial banking, small business lending and equipment leasing for thirty years and possesses deep knowledge of the operational side – so he’s the go to guy on the operations side. We have also attracted six quality retail sales people east of the Mississippi, but unlike when I came into the business years ago, where you are based does not determine the location of the business you write. Today, you can be sitting in New York City and doing deals in Miami or San Diego. So where these six individuals are based is not necessarily reflective of where they are doing business. Some will be working closely with Bank BDOs as mentioned earlier in this conversation and some have either vendor referred business or extensive end-user relationships that will eventually also become Bank customers.
We are also drawing from other bank finance companies and leasing companies in terms of key administrative and credit personnel so that we will have all key management positions on-boarded, and those key managers will then look to hire their staffs. We plan to be fully operational in mid-May.
Equipment Finance Advisor: Please tell our readers a little about this new group’s sector focuses, targeted transactions sizes and credit profiles, geographic focus, tax-lease appetite, and approach toward indirect and vendor business.
Orenstein: Predominantly we will be a general equipment finance company operating in all fifty states– pursuing IT, telecom, manufacturing, healthcare, graphic arts, vocational trucks and trailers, and construction. The targeted ticket size will range from $25K up to the $5MM range and our “sweet spot” will likely be $50K - $1MM, but we will not shy away from larger opportunities. The other part of this balance is the stratification within the portfolio. We are going to consciously be looking to do business with small businesses up to investment grade businesses. We’d like to bring that type of balance to our portfolio as we do not want to get trapped into any one type of customer profile as this was a mistake lenders made before the market correction of 2008 and we all learned from our mistakes. An important point is that we are a credit lender first and a collateral lender second. The collateral helps us in the credit equation, but we are no different than any other lending group in the bank where the balance sheet will play a critical role in the credit process.
We will be pursuing a very balanced portfolio including not only retail business, but also wholesale business. So we will have both a retail sales force as well as a capital markets sales force that will be prospecting for participations and syndications. Additionally, we are going to be offering vendor programs for dealers, distributors and manufacturers. We will have back-end and front- end systems in place to effectively process these transactions to capitalize on the flow of such business.
As far as tax oriented leasing, we will not come out of the gate offering a fair market value product. It’s not that we are risk averse, but initially we will be a money-over-money player and also provide First Amendment leases.
Brown: In closing I would like to add that we are stepping into this business line in a serious way as we want it to be a meaningful part of our portfolio. We are not dabbling in this; rather we are building a business unit that will be viewed as a serious player in this business.
Read the ABL Advisor article profiling Hudson Valley Bank's asset-based lending unit:
Hudson Valley Bank Launches HVB Capital Credit – The Perfect Next Step