The challenge
The company needed to replace aging underground longwall shields from a foreign vendor, requiring over $65 million in financing. With a desire to preserve their liquidity, they were interested in partnering with someone to provide progress payments to their vendor overseas, along with a final operating lease structure at final delivery. The amount of funding needed was on the larger side for any one bank, so the team had to find a way to bring in additional capital-markets partners for a transaction in an industry that's often viewed as unfavorable.
The solution
Wintrust’s commercial finance team successfully peeled back layers to fully understand the customer’s business and its complexities, including capex needs, structuring desires, and changing industry dynamics. With strong capital market relationships, Wintrust Commercial Finance was able to bring in three other capital partners and provide an interest-only progress payment facility and an operating lease structure with early buyout at final equipment delivery—bringing $65,759,751 to fund these underground shields.
“Even with multiple hurdles to clear, we were able to deliver,” says Justin Piot, VP, Business Development for Commercial Finance. “Our team had to work together seamlessly to execute on such a large transaction, and in what’s generally perceived as an unfavorable industry with tough underground mining collateral, and a foreign vendor requiring monthly progress payments.”
Results and impact
The client was able to conserve their liquidity and revolver capacity—demonstrating to the public markets an ability to tap the bank market on these types of transactions. They were extremely pleased with the competitively priced and structured operating lease.
Relationship and team insight
This transaction reflected close collaboration across the Wintrust organization with team members across several teams, including:
- Business Development
- Capital Markets
- Credit
- Legal
- Documentation
- Operations
- Asset Management
Your partner for growth
At Wintrust, we’re ready to help your business move forward—even when the path ahead isn’t simple. Connect with our team to learn how our flexible financing solutions and industry expertise can help you reach your goals.
