Essex Capital Group, Inc. announced that the firm recently arranged a $10 million term debt capital raise for Cornerstone Industrial Minerals Corporation, U.S.A., a Lakeview, Oregon, privately held company engaged in the mining, processing and marketing of perlite.  Cornerstone's perlite is predominantly used in building construction products and horticultural applications.

The principals at Cornerstone hired Essex to complete a balance sheet recapitalization that resulted in a refinancing of an existing SBA facility and other corporate debt, allowed for the purchase and upgrade of equipment, and also provided substantial additional capital for this high growth business.

Bruce Addington, Cornerstone President, commented, "The expanding market for perlite in hydroponics has created a great growth opportunity for Cornerstone and we needed to expand our mine capacity to take advantage. To do that required new capital and we turned to Bob and Rob at Essex Capital to solve the problem. They came up with a creative solution for raising debt that will enable us to meet all of our growth objectives for many years to come."

Essex Capital acted as the Company's exclusive advisor in this transaction.