Market Changes & Deferments – Letter from the President – 5-19-20

My hope is that this letter finds all of you safe, healthy and weathering this storm as well as can be expected. The effects of the Covid-19 pandemic has directly impacted all of us, both in business and in our communities.

With some states starting to re-engage their economies we wanted to follow up with you to communicate the current state of the industry and how we are working to maintain and support you. To date the hardest hit sectors of the economy have had their business drop off substantially with some down 90% or even 100% over the past 6 weeks. Closing the doors, even for a short period of time, on an otherwise successful business has a detrimental effect to the psyche of everyone associated with it and our hearts go out to those in that situation.  To date I am not aware of anyone that has not been impacted in some way by the health or economic side of this event and it is our endeavor to keep clear and transparent communication and update our customers when we feel the information is deemed necessary.

Early on a percentage of customers in these hardest hit sectors such as transportation and restaurants have requested modifications to their loans to help ease them through this period. Some have refinanced their debt to better allocate capital for the near term. We have personally felt the damage this virus has caused as new originations fell sharply during this period and we were funding just a fraction of our normal volumes. We have had to make sacrifices and a tremendous work effort to enhance our focus, keep energies high and try to find the windows of opportunity that will benefit all of us.

Over the past month we have engaged our core strengths and relationships to determine the best road forward. We remain committed to you, our customers and the industries we serve. We are here and we are open for business. We have seen a definite increase to business over the past two weeks and to that end we wanted to point out a few updates and are here to answer any questions you may have.

 We have enhanced products to assist a cautious market

The markets are cautious and a tepid restart is to be expected for the first few weeks or months back. We have worked on new offerings such as a 30/60/90 day deferred payment plan, skip payments for seasonal down time and 100% financing plus tax, title and fees on most vehicles and equipment. This is to assist those that need new equipment now although the future is still a bit unclear.

We are expanding to assist even more business sectors

We are expanding our footprint to cover more areas of the equipment finance space in segments less affected by the virus such as waste and environmental, construction, infrastructure, crane and service truck and similar essential business units. The same ease of use will be applied to these new industry groups and if you are unfamiliar with TransCapital, please don’t hesitate to call or visit us online at www.transcapfunding.com

We are in this pandemic together

There is a light ahead and resourcefulness with ingenuity will be needed. We have staked our careers on being positive and creating our own destinies for as long as I can remember. We are seeing a lot of negativity, politicking and generally downbeat media stories. It’s time to think positively about what we can do and if necessary engage a pivot to a business where we move on to brighter skies. We have had blackcar companies pivot momentarily to essential product and food delivery or leverage FedEx and their need for additional delivery capacity. We have also heard of several taxi companies doing the same. Where there is a will, there is a way and we are here to discuss ideas that might be helpful to you.

Some lenders are abandoning the market

Several lenders have started to reevaluate their interest in some of our segments as delinquencies near record levels. June and July will be key months to see how the economy rebounds after the staged re-opening of many states. The process for credit submissions will be a bit more conservative for many lenders. When you return to the market for new loans be prepared in advance to discuss how Covid-19 has impacted your business and how you are prepared to handle this moving forward. As of today, we have not changed our credit box and are still open to all our market segments. Call us in advance so we can help guide you through this new market dynamic.

Extended deferrals

For those that will need to extend a deferral or initiate a new modification, plans are being discussed and guidance is being requested from the government on how that will work. Once we have more clarity, we will send a separate correspondence on this matter. Expect additional filing requirements such as up to date financial documentation, a business disruption statement and/or plans for continuance of the business as new information that may be needed. As we receive guidance a more formal thoughtful process will be determined and communicated to all.

Additional Help

We are preparing new services to assist those that might be impacted further. These will include Fleet management and sales of equipment, Refi or cash out financing on owned equipment and the deferred and skip payment plans mentioned above.

For further assistance or to discuss your own personal situation please visit us online at www.transcapfunding.com or socially at Twitter / FaceBook / LinkedIn / Instagram. We sincerely appreciate you and what you do and are working hard to make sure we are here long into the future for the betterment of our customers.

Best Regards,

Don Coolbaugh