Vince Belcastro

This past September, Vincent (Vince) Belcastro (46) was appointed managing director and group head of CIT Capital Equipment Finance.

Belcastro comes with an exemplary career background in asset finance – together with an extremely valuable previous four years as senior credit officer at CIT Corporate Finance. Valuable - because a solid background in risk management is an important attribute for senior management in leasing companies in this post-recessionary environment.

He told Asset Finance International: “There has been a core change in lending policy for all lenders. The requirement now is for a higher degree of customer information prior to underwriting and an in-depth working knowledge of their balance sheets.”

Since its reformation CIT too has changed. “We think differently,” he stressed. "We have far greater asset management and credit strength and are in a good position to fill the market void vacated by our former competitors.”

Middle market

CIT Capital Equipment Finance specializes in providing highly-customized equipment loans and leases for “middle market” transactions ranging from $2m to $100m and with terms up to seven years.

Belcastro was also instrumental in the launch, team development and integration of the company’s Problem Loan Management and Healthcare groups.

After achieving a BSc degree in Economics and Finance at Saint Francis College, New York, his early career was spent with Bankers Trust (later acquired by Deutsche Bank in 1998 for $10.1bn) where he was involved in deal-related finance activities within the middle market corporate finance sector and completed the Deutsche Bank credit training program. This he describes as: “A formal bank training program complete with finance accounting, securitization and case studies. All of which added a lot to the start of my career.”

At a later role at Republic National Bank (later acquired by HSBC in 1999 for $10.3bn) where he was part of the bank’s acquisition team, he faced his first professional challenges. “I was directly involved,” he said, “with mergers and acquisitions in Canada, Latin America and Western Europe. This was great and, together with the need to learn everything about international accounting rules, I enjoyed the opportunity to travel that came with the job.”

Bullion banking

“Following the bank’s acquisition of Mase Westpac Ltd, the bullion banking subsidiary of Westpac Banking Corp of Australia, in 1994, I became involved with precious metals and goldmine financing – lending which was very complex and required  extremely careful due diligence. It gave me a sound knowledge of working in the metal trading sector.”

Prior to joining CIT in 2001, Belcastro served in a variety of senior relationship management positions at Citibank N.A. where his responsibilities included sourcing and securing new corporate finance and leasing transactions.

Belcastro is approaching his new role with enthusiasm and is already further developing the effectiveness of his management team.

“We are in expansion mode,” he stressed. “I have an experienced account management team. We are building out and have appointed three key regional new business managers as well as a new underwriting team.”

“CIT has a long history as being a leader in middle market equipment financing. Our team will provide financial solutions for the purchase and lease of large ticket equipment as well as project finance-related activities in our corporate finance-focused industries.”

Sectors for growth

Belcastro highlighted several sectors experiencing growth including the beverage and food service markets, transportation (“including trucking and big rigs”), packaging, machine tools - and floorstock amongst others.

Looking ahead at new markets, he signals out renewable-energy assets and technology-related products as likely new prospects.

There is growing evidence of increasing rate pressure in the middle market sector at present and Belcastro acknowledges that competition is “challenging”.

He is encouraged by the growing trend for US corporates to renew their assets – a trend that is not yet occurring in the UK or Europe. “During the recession,” he said, “chief financial officers have retained their cash and not invested in CAPEX (capital expenditures). In the short term they’ve effectively put Band-Aid on their equipment!”

“However, this doesn’t make sense any longer and equipment replacement is needed. US corporates are increasingly catching up with their asset renewals – albeit in a slow and steady fashion.”

Belcastro does not agree with current statements that lessors are unimaginative regarding new product development. “To be fair,” he stressed, “I think the industry has done a good job in tailoring products and structures to fit lessees’ needs. Specialized financial structures have been around for some time and I believe the industry continuously strives to adapt to demand.”

He indicates CIT’s own revolving credit, sale-leaseback, specialized low/high, seasonal and “skip” payment products as evidence of this.

He looks upon the impending changes to international lease accounting standards with mixed feelings. “While increased clarity in accounting for leases is not in itself a bad thing, I do believe that the intended changes could potentially lead to less investment in equipment.”

Looking ahead, he sees increased industry regulation and ongoing lack of capital as two of the principal challenges to be faced by non-bank equipment lessors – and there is still much post-recession recovery to take place. “There has not been much leverage for stand-alone new equipment finance companies to step into the market,” he said.

Nevertheless, for Belcastro the future is bright. “I see active, steady growth at CIT,” he said. “We will seek to grow through portfolio acquisition as well as organically.”

He added: “It is a compelling time to be in business – and for CIT to have come full circle.”

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