Press
Robust Investor Demand Marked by Milestones Including Positive Credit Trends Demonstrated by Fifth MFT Securitization of $464.3M and Appointment of New CFO
Wilmington, DE, January 29, 2018 – Marlette Funding, LLC, the parent company of Best Egg, announced today it closed its fifth proprietary “MFT” securitization. Approximately $495 million of Best Egg loans were financed via $464.3 million of MFT 2018-1 Notes with four classes and one class of Certificates, with certain loan sellers retaining risk on a portion of the Notes and/or Certificates.
This is the first securitization of 2018 bringing the total program issuance to date to $1.7B, with capital provided by a broad set of investors. The transaction was significantly oversubscribed, upsized and successfully priced, reflecting Marlette’s differentiated product offering and superior credit performance. Underwriting the transaction were Goldman Sachs, who served as the structuring agent, Citi, Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley. The Class A, B, C and D fixed-rate Notes were rated AA (sf), A (sf), BBB (sf) and BB (sf), respectively, by Kroll Bond Rating Agency (KBRA). The transaction complied with the Dodd-Frank Act’s risk-retention requirement by utilizing Majority Owned Affiliates owned by Marlette Funding, LLC.
“Today’s securitization announcement is just one more reason to expect that 2018 will be an exciting year for Best Egg,” said Mark Elbaum, chief financial officer at Marlette Funding. “We believe that strong fundamentals, healthy performance, overall nimble and scalable infrastructure will result in a significant uptick in the existing business and open doors for new service and product launches.”
Year over year, Best Egg has demonstrated impressive scalability – 66% year-over-year growth in originations with only 9% growth in year-over-year fixed operating expenses and 29% reduction in marketing cost per loan. Underpinning the market-leading performance, the company continues to invest in and align around customers to guide the evolution of the business. 2017 advancements in data analytics and its flexible technical architecture enabled a continuous deployment process that increased the speed of change to real time if needed. The company recently appointed Mark Elbaum to chief financial officer and promoted Sabrina Basht to chief strategy officer, as part of an aggressive growth strategy.
“Marlette Funding has been very deliberate in building an investor base with deep strategic relationships across the capital structure,” said Geoffrey Kott, Head of Capital Markets and Strategy at Cross River. “They understand the financial services industry and invest and align the business with the customers.”
About Marlette Funding and Best Egg
Marlette Funding, through its consumer brand Best Egg, is a financial technology provider on a mission to find better ways to make money accessible to allow people to enjoy life. The team mixes decades of banking experience with deep customer knowledge and smart technology to deliver digital products, services and experiences in a more relevant way. Today, Best Egg provides a frictionless online personal loan platform where qualified applicants can instantly view loan offers with no impact to their credit score and receive funds in as little as 1 business day. Since March of 2014, the online loan platform has delivered over $4.7B of prime loans with unparalleled credit performance.
About Cross River Bank
Cross River is a full service New Jersey State Chartered FDIC-insured bank. It has developed strategic partnerships with financial technology leaders to build fully compliant and integrated solutions for the marketplace lending and payment processing arenas. As disintermediation and financial independence increasingly fuel the new economy, Cross River is uniquely positioned to service both the established giants and the growing list of new entrants into these sectors. Corporate web site: www.crossriverbank.com.
