Amalgamated Capital Seeks Lower-End Niche

One of the buyout industry’s newest credit providers has teamed with one of the most prominent to provide financing for a midwestern rollup play.

New York-based Amalgamated Capital joined forces with Madison Capital Funding LLC to provide $27 million in senior financing to Waud Capital Partners‘s portfolio company CarePoint Partners. Cincinnati-based CarePoint used the money to refinance an existing loan, to make an acquisition and to provide dry powder for additional deals.

It was the kind of transaction that Amalgamated Capital, the leveraged finance division of Amalgamated Bank, a privately held New York labor bank, wants to be known for, said Timothy Clifford, head of Amalgamated Capital and executive vice president of Amalgamated Bank.

“They needed more capital to grow,” Clifford said. Chicago-based Waud Capital Partners had teamed up with an entrepreneur, Dana Soper, CarePoint’s CEO, to build up a company in the home infusion-therapy market. In the deal announced this month, CarePoint acquired ivA Lifetec of Houston. The add-on, CarePoint’s tenth deal in three years, gives it a network of 17 sites in eight states. The credit involved a conventional revolving credit facility and term loan, as well as a committed acquisition line of credit for future deals.

For Amalgamated Capital, the financing deal was also its tenth since its launch in September 2009. Clifford said Amalgamated Capital acted as the syndication agent on the financing, while Madison Capital, the Chicago-based private equity financing arm of New York Life Investment Management Holdings LLC, served as administrative agent for the financing.

Amalgamated Capital is attempting to build a national business financing lower mid-market companies for sponsors, Clifford said. The firm is targeting companies with enterprise value less than $100 million, revenue of $15 million to $100 million, and EBITDA of $3 million to $15 million. Amalgamated Capital wants to provide $15 million typically and can work to syndicate larger loans.

Although Amalgamated Capital is positioning itself as a generalist lender, Clifford said the firm is seeing strong interest in health care and education related companies—defensive plays that should perform reliably as the economy recovers from recession.

Amalgamated Capital provided about $150 million of financing in its first year of operation, above its $100 million target, and is planning to provide another $100 million to $125 million in credit this year, he said. “We don’t do non-sponsor transactions. Our customer is the private equity community, and we want to serve them very well.”