Auto lender United PanAm Financial Corp. agreed to sell itself for $110 million to an entity controlled by its chairman, Guillermo Bron, and private equity firm Pine Brook Road Partners LLC.
The Irvine, Calif., lender, which specializes in financing purchases of used cars, said Tuesday that the sale is expected to close in the first quarter of 2011, pending regulatory and shareholder approval. The company, whose shares currently trade on the Pink Sheets, would operate as a private entity after the closing.
United PanAm reported a net loss of $1.3 million for the quarter ended June 30, compared with a profit of $941,000 a year earlier, according to its most recent financial filing.
In May, its subsidiary United Auto Credit Corp. sold the servicing rights and residual interests in its outstanding securitizations to Santander Consumer USA Inc., a unit of the Spanish bank Banco Santander SA. As part of that transaction, United surrendered the right to repurchase certain loans it previously sold to Santander in a May 2009 transaction.
United PanAm’s sale is the latest in a string of recent auto lending deals.
Last week Toronto-Dominion Bank announced it was buying Chrysler Financial for $6.3 billion from private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management LP.
In July, General Motors Co. announced it was buying subprime auto lender AmeriCredit Corp. for $3.5 billion.
