Conti Invests in Franchise Lender

ContiFinancial Corp., New York, has made an investment of an undisclosed amount in American Commercial Capital LLC, Carlsbad, Calif., that will give it a 50.1% economic interest in the company, ContiFinancial has announced.ContiFinancial will have a 50% voting interest in ACC, which specializes in franchise lending, and will be its primary source of financing and securitization services. Glenn Goldman, executive vice president of ContiFinancial, cited "the recent synergy and convergence" between the franchise lending and commercial real estate marketplaces and said ACC is "poised to exploit the opportunities" to work with ContiFinancial's ContiMAP commercial real estate mortgage conduit. John Shrewsberry, ACC's managing director for capital markets, said lending to small business franchises in a format suitable for securitization is a first step toward giving them greater access to the capital markets. "The more than $3 billion of similar paper originated by other commercial finance companies and the REITs in this sector represents a very small portion of the potential marketplace for this type of financing," Mr. Shrewsberry said.