GREENWICH, Conn., Nov. 20, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Fifth Street Management LLC ("Fifth Street") today announced that it has provided a one-stop financing facility for First Choice Emergency Room, LLC ("First Choice ER"), the nation's largest and oldest freestanding emergency room system. Fifth Street Finance Corp. (NASDAQ:FSC) ("FSC") funded a $75 million term loan at close, which will be utilized to support First Choice ER's continued growth.
The First Choice ER deal represents Fifth Street's fourth transaction in the last 12 months with Sterling Partners, a private equity firm with more than $5 billion in assets under management and a track record for growing innovative companies. The transaction also epitomizes the increased deal flow Fifth Street is seeing overall, thanks in part to the platform's enhanced ability to provide custom-tailored financing solutions up to $500 million.
"First Choice ER provides communities with much needed additional access to emergency care and ranks in the top one percentile of patient care nationally, according to patient feedback gathered by Press Ganey," said Sterling Partners Managing Director Danny Rosenberg, adding, "As First Choice ER further solidifies its leadership position as the oldest and largest freestanding emergency room system, Fifth Street delivers everything we want in a lending partner—agility, dependability and balance sheet strength."
"Multiple credit lines, including the recent upsizing of FSC's ING-led credit facility, and a robust capital markets presence have strengthened our ability to offer sponsors substantial commitment sizes," noted Fifth Street's Chief Executive Officer, Leonard Tannenbaum.
Sunny Khorana, a partner of Fifth Street, added, "This facility represents an exciting transaction for the Fifth Street platform and our growing relationship with Sterling Partners. For us, it always has been—and always will be—about providing dynamic financing solutions to our private equity sponsors."
About Fifth Street Management LLC
With over $3 billion in assets under management, Fifth Street Management LLC is a leading alternative asset manager and the SEC-registered investment adviser of two publicly-traded business development companies, Fifth Street Finance Corp. (NASDAQ:FSC) and Fifth Street Senior Floating Rate Corp. (NASDAQ:FSFR). With a track record of more than 15 years and offices across the country, Fifth Street's nationally recognized platform provides custom-tailored financing solutions to small and mid-sized companies, primarily in connection with investments by private equity sponsors. Principally in the form of one-stop financings, first lien, second lien, mezzanine debt and equity co-investments, the Fifth Street platform has the ability to hold loans up to $150 million, commit up to $250 million and structure and syndicate transactions up to $500 million. Fifth Street's website can be found at fifthstreetfinance.com.
About First Choice Emergency Room
First Choice Emergency Room (FCER.com) is the nation's leading freestanding emergency room system; it is both the largest and the oldest. First Choice Emergency Room is revolutionizing the delivery of emergency medical services for adult and pediatric emergencies. First Choice Emergency Room facilities are innovative, freestanding and fully equipped emergency rooms with state of the art diagnostic technology (CT Scanners, Ultrasound and Digital X-ray) and on-site labs. Employees voted First Choice Emergency Room as one of the 2013 Best Companies to Work for in Texas. All First Choice Emergency Room locations are exclusively staffed with board-certified physicians and emergency trained registered nurses. First Choice Emergency Room has ten locations in the Houston area, ten in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, two in the Austin area and one in Colorado Springs. According to patient feedback collected by Press Ganey, First Choice Emergency Room provides the highest quality emergency medical care—ranking in the top one percentile of patient care nationally.
About Sterling Partners
Sterling Partners is a private equity firm with a distinct point of view on how to build great companies. Founded in 1983, Sterling has invested billions of dollars, guided by the company's stated purpose, INSPIRED GROWTH(TM), which describes Sterling's approach to buying differentiated businesses and growing them in inspired ways. Sterling focuses on investing growth capital in small and mid-market companies in industries with positive, long-term trends—education, healthcare and business services. Sterling provides valuable support to the management teams of the companies in which the firm invests through a deep and dedicated team of operations and functional experts based in the firm's offices in Chicago, Baltimore and Miami.
The people at Sterling believe in ideas and ideals, in people and partnerships that drive long-term success. For more information, please visit www.sterlingpartners.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release may contain certain forward-looking statements, including statements with regard to the future performance of Fifth Street Finance Corp. Words such as "believes," "expects," "estimates," "projects," "anticipates," and "future" or similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to the inherent uncertainties in predicting future results and conditions. Certain factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in these forward-looking statements, and these factors are identified from time to time in Fifth Street Finance Corp.'s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Fifth Street Finance Corp. undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.