Bill Kearney joined Encina Business Credit as senior managing director to lead the company’s national expansion into retail finance. Kearney will be targeting retailers that cannot obtain financing from traditional banks. EBC provides borrowers in the retail industry with senior secured revolving lines of credit and term loans ranging in size from $5 million to $50 million.

Based in the company’s new Atlanta office, Kearney will lead EBC’s origination efforts in the Southeast region across all industries, including manufacturing, automotive, oil and gas, services, distribution and consumer products in addition to retail. Borrowers may use loan proceeds to fund working capital, acquisitions, refinancings, growth, restructurings/turnarounds, debtor-in-possession/exit financings and other special situations.

Kearney is a 30-year industry veteran who has worked for premier financial institutions, including The Bank of Boston, Deutsche Financial, Wachovia and the CIT Group. Most recently, Kearney served as a managing director at the CIT Group, where he spent 13 years in the company’s Commercial & Industrial and Retail Finance Groups.

In connection with Kearney’s hiring, Marty Battaglia, EBC’s CEO, said, “I’ve had tremendous success lending to the retail industry over my career, and I envision that retail will become a large and important vertical for our platform going forward. Bill possesses the specialized expertise to understand the relevant dynamics affecting our prospective retailer customers, and to create customized financing solutions that meet their needs. At the same time, Bill is very well-positioned to lead our origination efforts in the Southeast across all industries by utilizing the extensive network and goodwill that he’s built in the region over the past 30 years.”

Launched in March 2016, Encina Business Credit is an independent asset-based lending platform targeting middle-market borrowers in the U.S. and Canada that cannot obtain required financing from traditional banks.