BC Partners Buys Runway Growth, Teams with Piper Sandler
BC Partners Credit, the $8 billion credit division of the international investment firm BC Partners, will buy Runway Growth Capital, a provider of growth loans for companies seeking alternatives to equity funding. Separately, the firm launched a partnership with Piper Sandler to enhance debt financing options for financial institutions.
The Runway Growth acquisition is intended to complement BC Credit’s existing capabilities across private lending, opportunistic credit and specialty finance. The deal will preserve Runway’s role as investment adviser to Runway Growth Finance Corp., a business development company, while maintaining its current management team, including founder and CEO David Spreng.
“David and the team at Runway have built one of the most well-respected platforms across growth and venture lending,” said Ted Goldthorpe, head of BC Partners Credit. “As a virtue of being part of the BC Partners Credit platform, we see many compelling opportunities for Runway to generate additional origination activities.”
The acquisition is expected to significantly broaden Runway’s capabilities beyond its traditional $30 million to $150 million investment range. Spreng outlined new opportunities including structured equity preferred investments, asset-based lending, and equipment leasing operations.
The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter.
The partnership with Piper Sandler aims to expand debt financing options for financial institutions and leverage its track record of executing more than 550 debt transactions worth nearly $40 billion over the past decade.
“It has become significantly more challenging for small-cap, mid-cap, and privately-owned banks, as well as non-bank financial companies, to execute debt capital market financings,” said Jacques de Saint Phalle, head of Piper Sandler’s financial services debt capital markets division. “The alliance aims to address these challenges, which have intensified following the Federal Reserve’s aggressive rate hikes and several bank failures in early 2023”.
BC Partners Credit named Sam Reinhart as managing director and head of FIG [Financial Institutions Group] Solutions to lead the initiative.