Trade Finance Firm Evolution Credit Raises $1 Billion

Trade finance firm Evolution Credit Partners Management has closed a new $1.05 billion fund.

The fund “invests opportunistically across Evolution’s entire credit platform, which includes both leveraged finance and trade finance strategies,” the Boston-based company said in a Tuesday (March 7) press release.

Evolution adds that those strategies primarily consist of “providing customized private capital solutions to companies looking for longer-term acquisition financing and shorter-term working capital needs.”

The new fund comes as companies of all sizes are struggling to gain financing. Smaller businesses, for example, are often at a disadvantage compared to their bigger counterparts.

Recent PYMNTS coverage showed that big banks’ approval rate for business loans fell to under 15%, a 10-month low, according to the report “Digital Banking Rises to Meet SMB Needs.”

“The pressure to find the right working capital solution is increasing, with one survey finding that big banks’ approval rate for business loans dipped to just below 15%, a 10-month low,” the report said.

“Alternative lending saw the biggest increase at nearly 2%, meaning small businesses are increasingly looking to FinTechs and digital-first offerings to deal with cost pressures.”

The report also found that nearly a quarter of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are concerned with finding affordable funding, leading to an existential threat for many owners.

Last month, PYMNTS looked at some of the ways finance chiefs were rethinking the ways they allocate working capital.

“Whereas everyone was kind of like, ‘Where can I invest,’ now they’re thinking about, ‘OK, money’s a little bit more expensive now. Let me be much more strategic and focused on where I do invest,” said Julie Lubell, global head of trends and advisory at J.P. Morgan Payments, in a recent interview with PYMNTS’ CEO Karen Webster.

PYMNTS’ research has found that as organizations work to update their in-house operations using years of relevant data to guide their decisions, there are crucial shifts in investment priorities that are based on business-specific cash flow, working capital and liquidity strategies.

“The data shows that if you adopt technology and harness the services that are out there, you can drive more business for your company,” Mark Hoyt, CFO at restaurant solutions provider Popmenu, told PYMNTS last month.

Many businesses have gone through several stages of technology spending, with the landscape in the middle of a pivotal migration toward modern and increasingly digital solutions designed to help organizations reach sustainable scalability through actionable transparency.