Wilhelms Quits Post as Triad CFO
Michael L. Wilhelms resigned his post as senior vice president of finance and chief financial officer of Triad Financial Corp., effective Oct 21. He was replaced by Jeffrey Butcher, the company’s vice president of finance and controller. Butcher will be paid $207,000 annually.
Wilhelms, an 11-year veteran of the nonprime lender, was responsible for all aspects of the finance and accounting departments. Prior to joining Triad, he was an assurance manager at KPMG Peat Marwick LLP, where he specialized in the nonprime finance industry.
Butcher joined North Richland Hills, Texas-based Triad in July 2003. Previously, he was senior vice president and controller at Bay View Capital Corp., a bank holding company that sold its auto finance portfolio to AmeriCredit Corp. in 2005. Butcher also spent a decade at KPMG, most recently as a senior manager.
Triad has been transitioning itself into a third-party servicer since it stopped originating indirect auto loans when its funding dried up in May. The effort is being spearheaded, in part, by Scott France, a former AmeriCredit executive who joined Triad in August 2007 as senior vice president of portfolio management. In late summer, Triad launched a vehicle certification program meant to bolster auction returns. The program is similar to one France helped develop at AmeriCredit in 2005.
Triad manages $4 billion in receivables. The company is owned by a trio of private equity firms: Hunter’s Glen Ford Ltd., Goldman Sachs, and GTCR Golder Rauner LLC.
—Marcie Belles
I think there can be some fair comparisons made between the payday loan business and the BHPH auto loan business. Personally, I’m not for curtailing either. How else does a segment of the population that, for better or worse, has found themselves in the straits of bad credit. If these to segments of finance are curtailed, will those people cease their borrowing? I think not. “Guido and Tony” from “Break Your Knee Caps” loans will benefit. If I’m going to make loans to risky borrowers, I will set my own rules, thank you very much!
It seems to me that there are certain things that need to be scrutinized in the business of lending to consumers, but a federal one size fits all solution is not called for. Statutes already exist to deal with lending practices on both the federal and state level.
Perhaps securitization needs to be looked at? I’m not aware of any CDOs being attached to auto loan securities. Does anyone know anything about that? I’ve got a real “thing” about CDOs, which in my mind are insurance products. AIG and others did not use the term insurance when they created these “risk hedges” and the appropriate authorities totally missed it. We all know what happened from there…. no reserves to pay claims and no safety net under the system, as with insurance products.
Let’s hope the folks who lobby for the auto industry can gain an ear on this issue.