Peapack-Gladstone Financial Corporation announced a heightened commitment to providing strategic advice to entrepreneurs and business owners who are looking for thoughtful and customized solutions. The Bank is further investing in its advice-led strategy through its corporate advisory team and expanding on the opportunities that this business segment offers.
“Our approach, which is routinely available for large well-known businesses, has been lacking for new or lessor known - yet successful - entrepreneurs,” said Doug Kennedy, President and Chief Executive Officer of Peapack-Gladstone Bank. “We recognize the opportunity to expand in this area because we have seen so much success.”
To help execute on its commitment to this dynamic market, the Bank has hired Kevin J. Bodnar to head the division with Patrick R. Brocker, a leader at Peapack-Gladstone Bank since 2015, who heads structured finance. The duo, along with fellow Peapack-Gladstone Bank senior managing director, Thomas Brower, will lead the team in complement to other disciplines within the Bank, evaluating strategic alternatives for clients, including acquisitions, divestitures, joint ventures and recapitalizations; assessing debt capacity and appropriateness of debt and equity solutions; and evaluating alternatives to improve alignment of family and business objectives.
“Each member of the corporate advisory team has consistently demonstrated success by adding value and delivering strategic insight to clients,” said Eric H. Waser, Executive Vice President and Head of Commercial Banking at Peapack-Gladstone Bank. He continued, “Growing our team allows us to leverage an already successful line of business. It gives us the ability to support entrepreneurs and business owners with Bodnar’s merger and acquisition experience, which is a perfect fit with our advice-led strategy.”
Bodnar of Morris Plains, NJ, is a financial executive with a proven track record in investment banking, private equity and commercial banking, with more than 30 years’ experience in business development, strategic and financial advisory, lending and investing, credit underwriting and structuring, and executing mergers and acquisitions. He most recently served as managing director at Corporate Fuel Partners, New York, NY, where he oversaw the firm’s broker-dealer subsidiary. Prior to that, Bodnar was a director with Alliance Mezzanine Investors, responsible for executing all phases of mezzanine and equity investments and fund management for the middle market focused SBIC-licensed fund. Before Alliance, he worked at FleetBoston Financial for 15 years in credit and lending. He was a founding member of Fleet Securities, Summit Bank’s mezzanine investment fund and capital markets business. Mr. Bodnar holds an MBA in Finance with a certification in International Finance from Seton Hall University and a BA in Political Science, with a minor in Business Management from Drew University. He is Series 7, 63, 79 and 99 NASD licensed.
Brocker, a Peapack-Gladstone Bank employee since 2015, responsible for cash flow leveraged finance and asset based lending product capabilities at the Bank, has more than 30 years of financial services experience, with a concentration in asset-based and middle market leveraged finance, and an expertise in origination, underwriting and relationship management. Patrick has delivered value added solutions that have created substantial wealth for prospects and clients, and exceptional returns for the institutions he has represented. A resident of West Windsor, NJ, Patrick holds a BA in Business Administration with a major in accounting from Marquette University. He has been active for more than 20 years in the Commercial Finance Association.
Brower joined Peapack-Gladstone Bank in 2016 as a senior managing director in the commercial private banking division, responsible for growing the commercial and industrial lending business and expanding regional influence. His 19 years of financial services experience includes success within the middle market and corporate, institutional and industrial banking markets. A resident of Freehold, NJ, Brower earned a BS in Finance from Monmouth University and has completed the Chartered Financial Analyst Level I program.