August Corso Sons, Inc., a family business since the 1940’s, is a premium provider of both annual and perennial plants to national retailers along with a landscape division and a retail garden center.  Corso's had been profitable in 11 out of the past 12 years, but ran into a perfect storm of issues in 2018.  While Corso’s had implemented a comprehensive operational improvement plan in 2019 to resolve the 2018 issues, in part due to internal bank strategies, their bank requested the company seek a new banking relationship.

Initially the bank requested that the refinancing be obtained within 70 days, a period including the Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s holidays.  Inglewood stepped in and negotiated with the bank to obtain an additional seven months for Corso’s to seek refinancing.

Inglewood then turned to finding a new lender with the preference for a traditional bank.  While the standard approach is to send teaser and then a detailed Confidential Information Memorandum (CIM), it was felt that this approach could disinterest the banks given Corso’s prior year challenges.  So, instead Inglewood took a "cards faced up" approach in an abbreviated CIM, detailed the company's operational improvement plans and the expected results, without first requiring an NDA.

The abbreviated CIM was well received leading to 13 banks signing NDA's in order to access the electronic data room.  Six banks requested a meeting at the company, leading to three bank offers.  PNC's offer was ultimately selected because theirs was clearly the best financial offer and their team meshed extremely well with the Corso's team.  PNC's deal was a five-year agreement, which allows the company to focus on business matters and not annual refinancing exercises.

Corso’s management stated, “The impactful financial consulting from Inglewood was instrumental in providing an optimal long-term solution for our business along with a long-term business partner to help us grow.  We recommend Inglewood to companies looking for an advisor during the refinance process.”