Frisco, TX – January 31, 2017 – Wintrust Commercial Finance (WCF) celebrated its first full fiscal year of operations in 2016.  Key achievements for the year include:

* WCF ended 2016 with over $450MM in assets which allowed it to exceed its growth and profit targets for the year

* Originated $177MM in Capital Markets new business volume through 18 key business partners

* Became the largest contributor to Wintrust Asset Finance’s (WAF) Net Assets which led to WAF’s first ever position in the Monitor Bank Top 50 list

* Hired and developed a six-member direct new business development team to further WCF’s progress towards a full-service commercial equipment finance organization

“2016 was a tremendous year for the WCF team and the achievement of these milestones positions us for continued growth and added resources which will help us to continue to serve our customers and partners,” said WCF COO, Joe Thompson.
“We want to thank all of our partners and customers, as well as our parent, Wintrust, for entrusting their business to WCF. We are excited to be building a best in class equipment finance and leasing business that provides superior customer service and dependable risk adjusted returns.”

“This last year was a pivotal one for WCF’s Capital Markets team,” said Tom Forbes, WCF’s SVP and head of Capital Markets. “The addition of Steve Cusick, a seasoned industry veteran, coupled with the credit and operations expertise that WCF has built through its strategic hires, has given us the platform to be a reliable, flexible and value-added partner in the syndication market.  We deeply appreciate the relationships we have built through the years and have brought to Wintrust and look to broaden and deepen those partnerships for years to come.”

WCF is an equipment-focused financing group, headquartered in Frisco, Texas, offering sophisticated loan and lease products to commercial companies throughout the United States. Focus industries include transportation, construction, manufacturing, energy services, aviation and turnkey property, plant and equipment, among others. WCF is a business unit of Wintrust Financial Corporation.

About Wintrust Financial Corporation

Wintrust is a financial holding company with $25 billion in assets and a common stock traded on the NASDAQ Global Select Market. Wintrust provides traditional commercial and community banking services; asset-based lending; wealth management services; commercial insurance premium financing; mortgage origination; short-term accounts receivable financing; and certain administrative services, such as data processing of payrolls, billing and treasury management services. Wintrust was created as the alternative to the big banks, offering the solutions and services of larger competitors with the customer-focus and service that can only be found at a true community bank or local financial services company. The Wintrust Community Bank family has more than 150 community bank locations across the Chicagoland area, southern Wisconsin and northwest Indiana.