Stonebriar Commercial Finance announced it has closed its seventh commercial equipment asset-backed securitization (“ABS”), SCFET 2020-1, a $572 million ABS issuance with top tranches achieving the highest possible short-term and long-term ratings from Moody’s Investors Service and Kroll Bond Ratings Inc.
SCFET 2020-1 is secured by a portfolio of commercial equipment loans and leases across a variety of asset classes including rail, aviation, marine transportation, energy, real estate and manufacturing across the U.S. and Canada. For the first time in Stonebriar’s history, the A-1 on its ABS achieved “P-1” and “K1+” from Moody’s and Kroll, respectively, while the A-2 and A-3 tranches of the transaction each received ratings of “Aaa” and “AAA”, respectively. SCFET 20122020-1 included assets from four of Stonebriar’s business platforms – General Equipment, Aviation Capital, Rail Leasing, and Real Estate – including transactions from our Canadian portfolio.
BofA Securities, Inc. served as Lead Structuring Agent and Joint Bookrunner. Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC served as Co-Structuring Agent and Joint Bookrunner. Citizens Capital Markets and Fifth Third Securities served as Co-Managers on the financing. Stonebriar will continue to service the assets with US Bank as backup servicer and custodian.
Dave B. Fate, President and CEO of Stonebriar, stated, “Since June 2016, Stonebriar has executed seven equipment securitization transactions totaling approximately $3.5 billion, attracting significant demand from a diverse group of domestic and international institutional investors. SCFET 2020-1 achieved a new milestone in securing “P-1” and “K1+” ratings on the A-1 money market tranche. The transaction was met with over $2.0 billion of demand from 28 third-party investors across 50 separate orders. The Bank of America team, led by Carl Anderson, remains a trusted financial advisor and did a great job structuring and marketing the deal for us. We remain fortunate to have such a strong, committed bank group and are pleased to achieve such efficient execution in the current market environment.
“Stonebriar’s continued strong performance, enhanced transparency during the marketing process, and multiple ratings upgrades on our six previous ABS pools continue to attract an investor base with a mix of repeat and new investors across the capital structure. We’re proud to count an estimated 50 institutional investors in our ABS investor base, including some of the largest global asset managers, pension funds and insurance companies.”
Stonebriar, an Eldridge Industries’ business based in Plano, TX, is a large-ticket independent diversified commercial finance and leasing company.