New Hires/Promotions in the Leasing Business
and Related Industries

Greg Clemens was hired as Senior Manager, Business Development, MAZO Capital Solutions, Boise Metropolitan Area. He is located in Star, Idaho. Previously, he was National Sales Manager, Equify Financial (November, 2022 - October, 2024); Senior Sales Manager, Transportation, Tandem Finance (January, 2021 - October, 2022); Director of Sales, Transportation Division, ENGS Commercial Finance
Co. (Now Mitsubishi HC Capital America); Regional Sales Manager, MeriCap Credit Corporation/Key Equipment Finance/ American Express Business Finance (2002 - 2009). Full Bio:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregclemens/details/experience/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregclemens/

Conner Lenahan, CLFP, was hired as National Sales Director, Marshall Capital Group, Indianapolis, Indiana. He is located in Carmel, Indiana. Previously, he joined Quality Leasing Co. May, 2014, promoted Commercial Finance Analyst, January 17, 2017, promoted Sales Representative (February, 2019 - November, 2024).
https://www.linkedin.com/in/conner-lenahan-clfp/

Dave Lafferty was hired as Chief Credit Officer at BriteCap Financial, Las Vegas, Nevada. He is located in Punta Gorda, Florida. Previously, he was Executive Finance President and Chief Credit Officer, CAN Capital.  He joined Marlin Business Services Corp. August, 1998, Vice President-Commercial Credit, promoted Vice President of Capital Markets (September, 2016 - October, 2019); Senior Credit Analyst, Advanta Business Services (August, 1997 - August, 1998); Information Consultant, Dun & Bradstreet (January, 1995 - August, 1997).
https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-lafferty-23707b7/

Brian Petrikonis was hired as Senior Vice President of Sales for Jupiter Equipment Finance, Jupiter, Florida.He is located in Greater Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He joined Jupiter June, 2024, as Senior Regional Sales Manager.  Previously, he was Senior Business Development Manager, CAN Capital (November, 2022 - April, 2023); Sales Manager, NewLane Finance (May, 2018 - November, 2022); Business Development Manager, Marlin Business Services Corp. (April 2016 - April, 2018).
https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-petrikonis-5a2b53130

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Changing Times in Banking and Finance
By William (Bill) Verhelle
Founder QuickFi, Harvard Partners & First American

I was surprised to learn that over 98% of the 35 million U.S. businesses have less than 100 employees.

Few, if any, of the 4,000 U.S. banks assign loan officers to serve companies with less than 100 employees.

So, virtually all U.S. banks compete to do business with less than 2% of U.S. businesses.

And the banks are not aggressively calling on the other 98% of U.S. businesses.

This is because of the inefficient bank delivery model. Banks use a 100-year-old salesperson (loan officer) delivery model.

For 40 years, banks of all sizes have moved “up market.” But during the past 40 years (except for the addition of CRM systems to track salesperson performance), the bank-SMB delivery model hasn’t changed.

Despite 30 years of CRM investments to slightly improve the 100-year-old sales model’s efficiency, the traditional, manual, assembly-line bank delivery model cannot serve small and medium businesses (SMBs). So, year after year, banks compete for a smaller and smaller group of larger and larger business customers. Meanwhile, 98% of U.S. businesses are underserved.

Embedded Lending will fix this.

So, the question becomes, will banks employ Embedded Lending before big tech companies use it to disrupt the banks?

Or, in a different scenario, will payroll companies, insurance companies, and software companies that already serve SMBs use emerging new Embedded Lending platforms to take the SMB interest revenue away from the banks?

It’s difficult to bet on the banks today, but things are beginning to change.

One way or another, Embedded Lending will likely replace existing sales/CRM delivery systems.

Who will widely adopt Embedded Lending capabilities to disrupt the others remains unclear.

Source: LinkedIn

William “Bill” Verhelle
https://www.linkedin.com/in/verhelle/details/experience

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Leasing and Finance Industry Help Wanted
Excellent Compensation/Marketing Support

What Do You Read?
By Scott Wheeler, Wheeler Business Consulting

Originators in the commercial equipment finance and leasing industry are advisors to vendors and end-users. Originators provide a wide range of financial advice related to the current market in which they and their clients operate. Originators depend upon interactions with their clients to understand the current market. Additionally, top originators conduct their own research to bring expertise to every conversation. To be an informed originator in the commercial equipment finance and leasing industry, there are a variety of resources available including, but certainly not limited to:

• Documents that an originator represents. (To best understand the products that an originator offers he must fully understand the documentation used to execute a transaction. When was the last time you read your documentation?)
• Daily financial publications (Ex: Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, etc.)
• Industry online news releases (Ex:  Equipment Finance Adviser, Leasing News, Monitor Daily and others such as deBanked)
• The CLFP Handbook
• "Call To Action", by Scott Wheeler
• Comprehensive industry research and studies, provided free of charge by the Equipment Finance and Leasing Foundation
• Association releases and websites
• Periodicals related to specific sectors (construction, medical, manufacturing etc.)

Top originators engage in the industry on multiple levels through direct contact, trade shows, association participation, educational webinars, and continuous research.

Scott A. Wheeler, CLFP
Wheeler Business Consulting
1314 Marquis Ct.
Fallston, Maryland 21047
Phone: 410 877 0428
Fax: 410 877 8161
Email: scott@wheelerbusinessconsulting.com
Web: www.wheelerbusinessconsulting.com

Wheeler Business Consulting is working with individual originators and sales teams throughout the industry to ensure that they are well positioned in the market, capturing their fair share of business, and outperforming the competition. To schedule a one-on-one meeting contact Scott Wheeler at: scott@wheelerbusinessconsulting.com

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Highest Number of Spam e-mails Sent
Daily 2024, by Country

As of December 8, 2024, China and the United States were the countries with the highest number of spam emails sent within one day worldwide, with around 7.8 billion. Ranking third and fourth were India and the Japan, with around 7.6 billion.

Internet and e-mail users around the world

Between 2019 and 2024, the number of email users globally increased from 3.9 billion to 4.4 billion. Moreover, this number is expected to increase up to 4.8 billion in 2027. Considering the fact that China and India had the highest number of internet users in the world in 2023, with over 1.2 billion and 1.1 billion users respectively, e-mail usage is less popular in these countries than in the United States or Germany.

Not only did the United States have the highest number of daily emails and spam emails sent as of October 2021, it was actually the most popular online activity among internet users in 2019. In fact, 90.9 percent of respondents said they were email users, more than search users, social network users, or digital video viewers.

by Ani Petrosyan,  Statista

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Top Countries by Computer Power

In this graphic, we break down the results of TOP500’s latest supercomputer ranking from a country perspective.

As of November 2024, the United States has the most systems in the TOP500 ranking, at 172. It also has the highest combined value of maximum achievable performance, at 6.5 million TFlops (Teraflops).

The following table lists the data used to create this visualization. One teraflop represents one trillion floating-point operations per second.

After the U.S., other top countries by computing power include Japan, Italy, and Switzerland.

Japan’s most powerful system is Supercomputer Fugaku, developed by RIKEN and Fujitsu in Japan. Finished in 2021, the project cost a total of $1.2 billion and was once the most powerful supercomputer in the world.

It’s interesting to note that after a few years, newer systems like America’s El Capitan have become significantly more powerful and cost less to build (El Capitan cost roughly $600 million).

China’s False Ranking

In the Nov. 2020 edition of the TOP500, China ranked third behind the U.S. and Japan in terms of maximum performance. It also had 214 systems in the ranking, the most out of any country.

Today, China is ranked seventh, with only 63 systems making it into the TOP500—but this ranking is most likely being skewed downwards. Many believe that China is withholding details about its newest supercomputers for geopolitical reasons.

From China’s perspective, publicly revealing these computers could result in further U.S. trade restrictions.

Source: Visual Capitalist

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##### Press Release ############################

Fora Financial Secures New $200 Million Credit Facility
Expanding and Diversifying Capital Resources

Company Strengthens Capital Base, Enhances Ability
 to Provide Financing to SMB Community

NEW YORK,– Fora Financial, a leading provider of flexible financing to small- and medium-sized businesses (SMB) nationwide, today announced the closing of a two-year, $200 million revolving credit facility. ATLAS SP Partners (“ATLAS”), the warehouse finance and securitized products business majority owned by Apollo funds, will serve as senior lender for the credit facility, joined by TPG Angelo Gordon as participating lender. The new facility, in combination with the company’s third securitization that closed in September, will provide Fora Financial with over $325 million of senior financing capacity, expanding the company’s ability to provide timely access to capital for the SMB community.

Andrew Gutman, Chief Operating Officer at Fora Financial, said, “It has been a busy but extremely rewarding past 90 days at Fora Financial, having now closed a new warehouse facility after completing our third and largest ever securitization in August.

“These new financing arrangements represent yet another crucial milestone for the company on our mission to be the leading provider of flexible financing for small- and medium-sized businesses. Over the past two years, we’ve been focused on developing several key products, and this capital will help us fully realize their potential while continuing to serve as a trusted source of capital for the small business community.”

Andrew Koepke, Director at ATLAS, said, “We are pleased to provide Fora Financial with additional capital. This partnership underscores our commitment to delivering meaningful financing solutions for our clients, and we are confident that the Fora Financial team, with their passionate leadership and proven track record, will continue to unlock new opportunities for small- and medium sized business owners everywhere.”

Aaron Ong, Head of Private Asset-based Credit at TPG Angelo Gordon, said, "We are proud to support Fora Financial in its mission of providing capital to small- and medium-sized businesses nationwide.

“Fora's experienced leadership, proprietary technology platform and dedication to customer service make the company an ideal partner for TPG Angelo Gordon as we continue to create customized capital solutions for premier non-bank lenders.”

About Fora Financial
Founded in 2008, Fora Financial has provided more than $4.0 billion of financing to more than 55,000 small business owners. It offers fast, personalized small business loans and revenue advances, supported by its proprietary technology platform, one-on-one customer service, and total transactional transparency. The firm employs more than 150 people at its New York headquarters and Miami office. For more information, visit https://www.forafinancial.com/

 About ATLAS SP Partners
ATLAS SP is a global investment firm providing stable capital, financing, advisory and institutional products to market participants seeking innovative and bespoke structured credit and asset backed solutions. We’re proud to build upon a legacy of client excellence that includes certainty of execution, deep expertise and full-service capabilities across the asset management landscape. For more information, visit, https://www.atlas-sp.com/

About TPG
TPG is a leading global alternative asset management firm, founded in San Francisco in 1992, with $239 billion of assets under management and investment and operational teams around the world. TPG invests across a broadly diversified set of strategies, including private equity, impact, credit, real estate, and market solutions, and our unique strategy is driven by collaboration, innovation and inclusion. Our teams combine deep product and sector experience with broad capabilities and expertise to develop differentiated insights and add value for our fund investors, portfolio companies, management teams, and communities. For more information, visit, https://www.tpg.com/

 
### Press Release ############################

News Briefs

Federal Judge Blocks $25 Billion Kroger-Albertsons
    Grocery Merger
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/10/business/kroger-albertsons-merger-ftc.html

Boeing only now resuming production a month
    after strike that idled two key plants
https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/10/business/boeing-resumes-production-month-after-strike/index.html

Cruise, SF's embattled self-driving car company,
    is finally folding after $10B in losses
https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/sf-robotaxi-company-cruise-folds-gm-cuts-funding-19972259.php

G.M. Will Stop Developing Self-Driving Taxis
 efforts on developing fully autonomous vehicles
    for personal use.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/10/business/gm-cruise-robotaxi.html

Memory chip maker Micron’s $6.1 billion grant
    confirmed by Commerce Dept.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/12/10/micron-grant-chips-and-science-act/

TikTok Asks Court to Temporarily Freeze
    Sale-or-Ban Law
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/09/business/tiktok-temporary-pause-ban-supreme-court-trump.html

 

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U.S. Transfers $20 Billion Loan to Ukraine
    Backed by Russian Assets
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/10/us/politics/20-billion-dollar-loan-ukraine.html

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Sports Briefs---

Luis Severino and Athletics agree to $67 million,
    3-year contract, AP sources say
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/trending/luis-severino-and-athletics-agree-to-67-million-3-year-contract-ap-sourc/

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California News Briefs---

Oakland corruption probe: Duong family supported
Sheng Thao to rake in taxpayer funds, prosecutors say
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/12/09/oakland-corruption-probe-duong-family-supported-sheng-thao-to-rake-in-taxpayer-funds-prosecutors-say/

This quirky Bay Area beach town lost its
   post office. Then residents fought back

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/bolinas-post-office-controversy-19957638.php

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Gimme that Wine

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJnQoi8DSE8

Best rosé wines in Paso Robles
    for the holidays
https://pasoroblesdailynews.com/best-rose-wines-in-paso-robles-for-the-holidays/206235/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=best-rose-wines-in-paso-robles-for-the-holidays

Generation snowflake: how can brands get more
people to drink rosé this Christmas?
https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2024/12/generation-snowflake-will-we-be-drinking-more-rose-this-christmas/

Unpaid workers at bankrupt Reynoso Vineyards
demand wages owed to them as far back as May
https://www.northbaybusinessjournal.com/article/news/reynoso-vineyards-sugarloaf-wine-unpaid-workers/

An Olympic Village of Agtech Innovation": Central Valley  
  Group's New Incubator to Spur Development of
Autonomous Robots and Tractors
https://www.winebusiness.com/news/article/295973