Houlihan Lokey served as exclusive placement agent on a second lien term loan for Rail Equipment Leasing and Maintenance (RELAM), which was acquired by affiliates of Paceline Equity Partners. The refinancing transaction closed on Aug. 4.
As exclusive placement agent to RELAM, Houlihan Lokey assisted the company in arranging, structuring and negotiating the financing. RELAM used proceeds from the transaction to refinance existing second lien indebtedness and pay transaction-related fees and expenses. Concurrent with the second lien refinancing, RELAM amended and upsized its existing asset-based lending revolver facility, providing the company with materially more capital and flexibility to continue growing the business.
Houlihan Lokey’s equipment-as-a-service and capital markets teams worked jointly to drive market demand and negotiate financing terms for RELAM on the transaction.
RELAM is a provider of specialty rental equipment for recurring, regulatory-driven maintenance-of-way (MOW) work on railroads. In July 2020, Paceline combined two existing MOW railroad equipment rental businesses to create RELAM. In January, the company bolstered its rental offering through the acquisition of Wiskerchen Rental & Leasing, a company that manufactures, services and rents out hi-rail trucks and related equipment.
Based in Dallas, Paceline is an investment manager focused on value-oriented, opportunistic and special situations across private equity, corporate debt and real assets. Paceline currently manages more than $1 billion in assets with a senior leadership team that has more than 15 years of investment experience, having previously worked together at a global private equity manager and its affiliates.
