From GE:

GE Capital Lends $51 Million to Giordano’s Pizza Restaurants

April 1, 2015

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SCOTTSDALE, AZ, APRIL 1, 2015 — GE Capital’s Franchise Finance (GEFF) business announced today that it has provided a $51 million credit facility to Giordano’s, a portfolio company of Victory Park Capital. GE Capital Markets served as administrative agent and joint lead arranger.

Founded in 1974 and calling itself the “originator of deep dish Chicago style stuffed pizza,” Giordano’s operates 16 units and franchises 31 units in the Midwest and Florida. The funds will be used to refinance existing debt and fund the development of new stores.

“We chose to work with GE Capital due to its expertise in the restaurant space, and its relationships within the industry. In short, we’re confident they can help us grow,” said Yorgo Koutsogiorgas, CEO of Giordano’s.

“We have a rich heritage of supporting the mid-market and advancing American businesses,” said Bill Kraus, a senior managing director with GEFF. “We’re pleased to support Giordano’s growth, a strong concept with a long history of successful operations and brand heritage.”

About GE Capital, Franchise Finance

With more than 30 years of experience and $6 billion in assets, GE Capital, Franchise Finance is a leading lender for the U.S. franchise finance market. It specializes in financing mid-market, multi-unit operators in the restaurant and hospitality industries. Its team of industry experts helps operators realize their individualized growth plans. Customers also receive access to GE Capital, Franchise Finance’s proprietary industry research and cutting-edge digital tools. For more information, visit www.gefranchisefinance.com or follow company news via Twitter.

GE Capital offers customers around the globe an array of financial products, services and insights to help them grow their businesses. For more information, visit www.gecapital.com or follow company news viaTwitter.

GE (NYSE: GE) imagines things others don’t, builds things others can’t and delivers outcomes that make the world work better. GE brings together the physical and digital worlds in ways no other company can. In its labs and factories and on the ground with customers, GE is inventing the next industrial era to move, power, build and cure the world. www.ge.com

Tags

• Business Unit: Capital, Franchise Finance, Sponsor Finance / Antares
• Region: North America
• Topics: Customers

Enthusiastic About Car Sharing? Your Insurer Isn’t

Excerpt from an article in

The New York Times

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Enthusiastic About Car Sharing? Your Insurer Isn’t

By RON LIEBER

At first glance, the idea of person-to-person car sharing appears to be the perfect solution to any number of problems.  

People with idle cars (and most cars are idle most of the time) can make some money by renting them out to others who need a car sometimes but not often enough to own one. At some point, the world would ultimately need fewer cars and places to park them. It feels greener, and sharing is polite and all that.  

But then the grown-ups show up, in the form of insurance companies. I called them this week in the wake of an announcement by RelayRides, a company with venture capital backing from both Google Ventures and General Motors, that it was taking its car-sharing service national.

And the grown-ups are not pleased. They want you to know that RelayRides insurance won’t be adequate in the event of a catastrophic accident and that your own insurance company may take away your insurance if it even hears that you are lending your car to someone in exchange for a few dollars an hour.

So anyone considering this sort of thing has to ask: Is the insurance industry overstating the risk of playing along with this cutting-edge idea, is RelayRides underestimating your exposure, or both?

RelayRides is one of several car-sharing services to arrive on the scene in recent years. Getaround is another start-up, as are JustShareIt and Wheelz, a company that the car-sharing giant Zipcar invested in last month.

They’re all part of a larger “collaborative consumption” movement that has captured the imagination of a growing number of civic-minded, Web-addicted people who want to both save some money and use a bit less of the world’s resources. This includes home-sharing services like Airbnb, office-sharing services like Loosecubes and general sharing sites like NeighborGoods and Rentabilities.