Sterling Bancorp is significantly expanding its Sterling Factors Corp. subsidiary with the acquisition of privately held DCD Capital and DCD Trade Services. Terms were not disclosed, but DCD president Zilay Wahidy will continue running the factoring, import trade financial, an accounts receivable management service operations as managing director of Sterling Trade Capital and senior vice president of Sterling National Bank, and most of the DCD staff will remain.
John Millman, president of the $2.2-billion-plus Sterling, says “there is actually a lot of opportunity” for smaller banks despite economic conditions. “There are healthy institutions all across the country expanding as major and regional banks pull back from lending,” he notes. “Yield curves are allowing community banks to provide credits at more reasonable rates.”
After years of feeling “very squeezed by very big banks, who were providing very generous underwriting,” adds Millman, “lending is returning to normal conditions. Banks are lending to people they know, and keeping the loans on their balance sheets.”
Sterling’s customer base is mainly comprised of small and midsized businesses that have limited financial resources; it offers asset-based financial factoring, and capital lines, among other services. “Our pipeline is extremely robust,” Millman says. “We have more potential new business than we typically see at this time of year.”
