UCC Capital Corp. expects to wrap up its first deal of the year this week, with funding scheduled for Tuesday. If all goes as planned, the firm will announce details within the next few days, although these transactions - private and largely esoteric - are notorious for taking time.
According to founder Robert D'Loren, who declined to offer specifics on the pending transaction, UCC is facing its strongest deal pipeline to date. "All the hard work over the past five years is starting to pay off for us," D'Loren said. "This will be the best year in the history of our company."
The New York-based boutique firm, known for its past presence in music and entertainment finance, has tapped into the veins of middle America, building a network of regional mid-tier bank originators spanning Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Boston, Washington DC, Nashville, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and more. Since UCC bought out cofounder Charles A. Koppelman roughly a year and a half ago, the firm changed its focus from entertainment to middle-market financing in industries and sectors that can exploit contractually obligated income streams, such as apparel, footwear, telecom, franchise, technology, industrials, pharmaceuticals (patents) and others.
Through training and investment, D'Loren has armed each regional bank with the UCC branded whole business technology, which captures a entity's entire bundle of cashflows, including intellectual property and "the intangibles that drive the value of IP," such as advertising and promotional revenue streams. "These are middle-market, M&A and loan placement firms," D'Loren said. "We've trained them and given them exclusive rights to use our technology."
UCC's New York team still structures and brings the deals to the capital markets. The firm has bridge loan capabilities via Northwest Capital.
"What we're finding now is that there's demand for private placements, and we actually have investors calling us," D'Loren said. "The reality is that, with us, they're getting highly structured, high quality deals with good margin."
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