Encina Equipment Finance, LLC (EEF) announced the addition of four industry veterans to its executive team. The company also has relocated its headquarters to new space in Westport, CT, to accommodate future growth.

EFF said the following executives have joined the company:

• Martin Ferguson company as Senior Managing Director of Capital Markets;
• Jenn Allred as Senior Vice President and Controller;
• Helen Steinberg as Assistant Vice President of Underwriting and Finance; and
• Colleen Bullock as Assistant Vice President of Operations.

Ferguson will be based in St. Louis, while Allred, Steinberg and Bullock will work out of the company’s new headquarters in Westport.

Ferguson will be responsible for helping to scale EEF’s commercial efforts via capital markets relationships (both buy- and sell-side). He most recently held senior roles in PNC’s Structured Capital Finance group and Scottrade Bank’s Equipment Finance group. Previously, Ferguson spent 18 years at GE Capital in sales roles of increasing responsibility in the equipment leasing and corporate finance businesses, with his final role involving nationwide responsibility for the firm’s loan and lease financing efforts in the marine industry.

Allred will be a senior member of EEF’s finance team and will be responsible for building a robust controllership function. She spent the previous 16 years at GE Capital in various Controller roles across a number of business units, including Structured Lending, Regulatory Finance and Sponsor Finance. Allred previously was a Senior Audit Associate at KPMG.

Steinberg will be responsible for evaluating new transactions as well as scaling FP&A and treasury functions. She spent 10+ years at GE Capital, most recently as an Investment Strategy Associate in the firm’s Power investing business. Steinberg previously held a variety of Risk and Finance analytical roles supporting GE Capital headquarters and a number of the firm’s lending businesses.

Bullock will be responsible for transaction documentation, funding and compliance. She spent 15+ years in equipment finance, and she most recently served in a transaction coordination role at Wells Fargo. Prior thereto, Bullock held various portfolio management and operations roles at GE Capital.

In connection with these personnel moves, Rick Matte, EEF’s President and Chief Commercial Officer, said, “We’re excited to continue adding executives of this caliber to our already talented senior management team. Each of these executives has an excellent track record and will contribute significantly to helping us build out our commercial, underwriting, operations and finance functions as we head into 2019.”

Willie Brasser – one of EEF’s founding partners – commented, “We are extremely pleased to welcome Martin, Jenn, Helen and Colleen to EEF and also want to congratulate Rick and our entire team for a very successful 2018. We look forward to our continued business expansion in our new Westport CT headquarters and want to thank all of our customers and partners for their business and support.”

Launched in June 2017, Encina Equipment Finance provides loans and leases ranging in size from $5 million to $50 million and secured by essential-use machinery and equipment. The platform provides financing to both privately owned (sponsor and non-sponsor) and publicly traded companies across a wide range of collateral types, industries (including, but not limited to, construction, distribution, energy, food processing, health care, information technology, manufacturing, mining, paper & packaging, and transportation) and use cases (including loans against existing or newly acquired assets, leases of newly acquired assets and sale-leasebacks of existing assets).