Goldstein:  There are several reasons as to why this is such a good fit. We were part of Macquarie for eight years and prior that that, we were part of CIT, Newcourt and AT&T. With Macquarie, we had some significant constraints. We had a high cost of funds which forced us to fund our business through securitization and third parties. Huntington was a good fit because as a business we wanted to land someplace where we could make a significant contribution, there was cultural alignment,  and Huntington Equipment Finance wants to grow this business through a national platform, which we offer.  At the same time, Huntington brings “better fuel” that what we had at Macquarie. That fuel is a lower cost of funds, a willingness to fund the business internally and a greater understanding of the U.S. marketplace. All of this will translate into providing more products and services to our customers who are the real beneficiaries here.

Equipment Finance Advisor:  Mike, please share your thoughts on the Macquarie acquisition and the new opportunities the two platforms under the Huntington umbrella represent for the future. 

Mike DiCecco:  Let me first say this: we think the combination of our existing equipment finance businesses with the new capabilities that Macquarie brings represents an extremely compelling value proposition for our clients. Over the last several years, we have built a strong and diversified business here at Huntington. Our equipment finance has focused on penetrating middle-market and large corporate clients within the footprint and we have excelled at that for the last five years. To give you a bit of perspective, we have launched into business verticals such as corporate aviation, rail car finance, municipal finance and lender finance surrounding that core footprint business. At the same time, we have built our capital markets capabilities … so, over the past five years, we’ve built a diversified business and we think that Macquarie adds to that diversification in the areas of technology and healthcare finance. These represent tremendous growth opportunities for us at Huntington. In addition to technology and healthcare, we strongly believe that Macquarie’s small-ticket leasing platform now brings a value proposition to Huntington’s business banking clients, a financial solution which we've been missing for several years.

We are very excited about this. When I consider the depth and capability of these combined leadership teams and broader set of capabilities, I think we are going to be able to play at a much higher level than we have in the past.