Ares Capital, a middle market capital provider, and Veronis Suhler Stevenson, a private equity and mezzanine investor, have entered into an agreement to collaborate in bringing debt capital to small and middle-market companies in the information, education, media and marketing services industries.
Veronis Suhler Stevenson and Ares Capital will team up to source and provide flexible senior debt financing to companies in select industries with USD5m to USD35m of Ebitda.
Veronis Suhler Stevenson has brought on Bill Archer, former chief credit officer of Bankers Trust and chief debt underwriter for Goldman Sachs, as partner VSS Debt Capital to head up its senior lending activities.
"We view this strategic relationship with Ares Capital as a significant benefit to our industry because of the current lack of capital available to lower middle market companies," says Archer. "Ares Capital’s efficient access to capital, scale and demonstrated credit expertise is a perfect complement for our strong, proprietary deal flow and demonstrated industry knowledge within our market segments."
"We look forward to a very productive strategic relationship with the well-established and highly regarded industry experts at VSS," adds Michael Arougheti, president of Ares Capital. "This relationship is expected to provide additional proprietary deal flow to us in several key sectors and strengthen our relationship with a valued private equity sponsor client. We believe this collaboration is a creative and efficient way to expand our origination capabilities and to reach attractive companies in the information, education, media and marketing services industries."
