Element Financial ("Element" or the "Company") announced the recruitment of a team of experienced structured finance veterans formerly with Credit Suisse Group. Together, this team has more than US$45 billion of experience structuring, investing and syndicating rail and aviation equipment finance transactions. The team's expertise includes transaction structuring for some of the world's largest transportation equipment lessors as well as syndicating rail lease pools and aircraft portfolios to US institutional investors. The team's investor base is principally comprised of US life insurance companies and includes more than 140 institutional investors participating in more than 60 transactions.
Based in Stamford, Connecticut, the team will seek advisory and transaction structuring mandates that capitalize on their extensive transportation equipment financing experience. A core focus of the team will be to structure and close third party funds holding transportation leased assets on behalf of institutional investors with Element acting as the fund manager. The structuring and management fees derived from these mandates will be incremental in 2015 to the net finance income Element earns from originating rail and aviation finance assets where the Company acts as a principal.
"Adding this capability provides Element with the opportunity to develop deeper relationships with existing rail and aviation clients at the same time that it allows us to provide services to a much broader range of transportation equipment manufacturers, lessors, operators and investors in both of these verticals," said David McKerroll, President of Element's rail and aviation finance business.
The acquired team consists of six professionals lead by Scott Corman whose background includes various award winning transactions many of which were completed in his 13 years as Head of the Transportation Asset Finance team at Credit Suisse AG in New York. As Element's Executive Managing Director, Scott will oversee Element's expansion into structured finance services in both the rail and aircraft markets.
In addition to Scott, Imran Hussein joins the Element team as Managing Director. Imran brings years of experience managing client relationships and capital raising for Credit Suisse, Merrill Lynch and Deutsche Bank. In his new role he will be responsible for sourcing and managing the team's funding relationships and the transaction syndication process.
David Center joins as Director and was a key member of the Transportation Asset Finance team at Credit Suisse AG and during his 11 year tenure played a key role in structuring and executing transactions for leading rail and aircraft lessors. He will oversee similar activities at Element for both direct investments as well as client/partner transactions.
Steve Marchi joins Element as Director from Credit Suisse AG's Transportation Asset Finance team where he spent the last 10 years. His background includes originating and structuring transactions in aviation and rail. While at Credit Suisse, he oversaw the execution of Element's first rail ABS transaction earlier this year.
Scott and his team, in addition to their expertise structuring transactions for the railcar industry, have provided structured advisory services to both civil and commercial aircraft lessors. While the team will continue to pursue these aviation mandates, Element will not be entering the market as a principal lessor of commercial aircraft.
"With clear line of site to surpass our $3.9 billion pre-PHH origination target for 2014, onboarding this experienced team of structured finance professionals allows Element to capture incremental fee income from the rail and aviation markets at the same time that we add leverage to our balance sheet from continued organic origination growth in each of our four verticals," added Steven K. Hudson, Element's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.