Capital One announced today that it served as administrative agent and joint lead arranger on a senior secured unitranche facility to support Excellere Partners’ recapitalization in partnership with the founder and management of SePRO, a specialty chemical producer that provides products and services for the plant management, plant protection and specialty agriculture markets. The facility was provided in part by Capital One’s ULTra unitranche loan program.

“In this dynamic environment, a seamless, one-stop financing solution can give private equity sponsors and borrowers a significant advantage,” said Bob McCarrick, Head of Middle Market Banking, Capital One.

The ULTra program, with HPS Investment Partners as its strategic co-investor, helps borrowers obtain unitranche loans without a rating agency or syndication process. A unitranche loan blends senior and junior debt pricing and terms into a single, first-lien debt facility. This approach increases certainty of execution, and borrowers benefit from the simplicity of managing a single credit facility.

“We were in search of partnership opportunities in the agricultural and water segments of the specialty chemicals industry that offer a solution comprised of high-performance products and proprietary technical services,” said Patrick O’Keefe, Partner at Excellere Partners. “SePRO fits these criteria perfectly, and the unitranche loan provided the flexibility we needed to make the investment and support its further growth.”

Excellere Partners is a Denver-based private equity firm with $1.36 billion of committed capital across three funds. Its targeted industry sectors include industrial technology and specialty chemicals; healthcare services and products; energy, power, and infrastructure services and products; and business services.

Capital One Sponsor Finance is a leading provider of financing, banking and capital markets services to the middle-market private equity sponsor community, offering creative and flexible capital to customers across a broad range of industries. Customized financing solutions provided include acquisition financings, refinancing of existing debt, recapitalizations, support for working capital needs and funding growth initiatives.

About Capital One

Capital One Financial Corporation (www.capitalone.com) is a financial holding company whose subsidiaries, which include Capital One, N.A., and Capital One Bank (USA), N.A., had $249.8 billion in deposits and $372.5 billion in total assets as of December 31, 2018. Headquartered in McLean, Virginia, Capital One offers a broad spectrum of financial products and services to consumers, small businesses and commercial clients through a variety of channels. Capital One, N.A. has branches located primarily in New York, Louisiana, Texas, Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey and the District of Columbia. A Fortune 500 company, Capital One trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “COF” and is included in the S&P 100 index.

About HPS Investment Partners

HPS Investment Partners, LLC is a leading global investment firm with a focus on non-investment grade credit. Established in 2007, HPS has approximately 126 investment professionals and over 320 total employees, and is headquartered in New York with ten additional offices globally, as of January 1, 2019. HPS was originally formed as a unit of Highbridge Capital Management, LLC, a subsidiary of J.P. Morgan Asset Management, and formerly known as Highbridge Principal Strategies, LLC. In March 2016, the principals of HPS acquired the firm from J.P. Morgan, which retained Highbridge’s hedge fund strategies.