Blackstone Buys Exeter Finance
Investment firm Blackstone acquired Exeter Finance Corp., the nonprime auto lender run by a team of former AmeriCredit executives.
Blackstone bought Irving, Texas-based Exeter from Navigation Capital Partners (NCP), and plans to invest as much as $277 million in the transaction. NCP and the Exeter management team will retain minority interests in the company.
“Having Blackstone as a financial partner is a huge vote of confidence in Exeter’s business model and long term strategic vision,” said Mark Floyd, Exeter’s CEO. “Blackstone is providing a significant opportunity for Exeter to continue building on our successful platform nationwide and play a leading role in the auto finance space.”
Exeter also announced that its $150 million line of credit from Wells Fargo has been bumped up to a $600 million credit facility, thanks to participation from Deutsche Bank, Citibank, and Credit Suisse.
Founded in 2006, Exeter does business in 28 states, with plans to expand in key markets nationwide. With a decentralized branch strategy, it has originated more than $200 million of loans, and maintains a $140 million portfolio.
“The approach we’re taking with our branch model is having a local presence — where the underwriters are local and marketing is local,” Floyd told AutoFinanceNews.net’s sister publication, Auto Finance News, last year. “People in the branch can make credit decisions.”
At the time, Floyd told AFN that Exeter “should only be limited by our capital and credit facilities.”
Looks like that won’t be much of a problem anymore.
