Looking to capitalize on a market of smaller deals, Peter Gleysteen and Charlesbank Capital Partners have teamed up to form Commercial Industrial Finance Corp. (CIFC). Open to all sectors of lending, it will work on typical deals of about $50 million. "There are record breaking levels of liquidity in the loan market [now], provided that the deal is north of $100 million," said Gleysteen, a former head of JPMorgan's syndicated loan business and CIFC's founder and ceo. "Once you go into double digits, it's limited and it is the less than $100 million space that we are addressing."
The 13-member firm brings together three of Gleysteen's former colleagues at JPMorgan Chase, Nga Tran, Liz Chow and Steve Vaccaro. Other CIFC members include: Kevin Walz, from PB Capital, Alex Jackson, from JH Whitney and Sean Dougherty from Standard & Poor's, among others. Gleysteen said the company will continue to grow. Along with targeting small, senior secured leveraged loans, it will also invest in large leveraged loans, second-lien tranches, revolvers and non-U.S. credits. The firm is very busy, according to Gleysteen, and has already booked business. He would not comment on specific deals, however.
On a loan-by-loan basis, CIFC can substitute for competitors in club loans and increase loan originator lending capacity for individual obligors. The new company launched last Thursday with a day one investment capacity of $400 million. "It was a natural evolution of putting the business together in terms of timing," Gleysteen said. "The start of the year was just a good time to make a debut and coincidently the market is very strong, so our timing is good."
Charlesbank is the strategic investor in the firm. It is a middle-market private equity firm that manages more than $1 billion of capital.