Oak Street renewed and increased credit facilities totaling $145 million with a syndicate of banks led by BMO and a separate facility with Lake City Bank. The company is positioning itself for a strong year of activity, after a record year of originations in 2014. Oak Street also increased its lending limit to $20 million.

“As insurance businesses continue to grow, especially due to acquisitions and consolidations largely fueled by an increase in retiring owners, their need for more capital has increased,” commented Oak Street CEO Rick Dennen. What’s more, the responsibility to find the right balance between debt and equity while minimizing risk also becomes more critical. Oak Street embraces these needs and continually develops customized solutions to meet them, continued Dennen.

“BMO is excited about expanding its relationship. Oak Street has been a very responsible leader to this industry and exhibited exceptional industry knowledge demonstrated by their loan structures and portfolio performance,” said Bill Bower, BMO SVP.

“The company continues to develop niche loan products for the insurance industry that make sense for the risk and demonstrate real expertise in underwriting credit,” commented Bradford Grabow, Lake City’s VP of Commercial Lending.