Investors Buy Majority Stake in CUSO Extensia
Business lending CUSO is now controlled by AVANA Capital.
AVANA Capital has bought a majority stake in Extensia Financial LLC, a Los Angeles-area business lending CUSO that emerged from NCUA control in 2012.
Extensia and AVANA did not immediately provide information last week identifying the credit unions or others that are the remaining minority owners of the CUSO.
“AVANA and Extensia have a combined $1.3 billion in assets under management, and a team that is capable of growing these assets tremendously in the coming years,” AVANA Capital CEO Sundip Patel said. “Our combined team is already working hard to expand product offerings and services that will serve and benefit both credit union and borrower customers.”
Sanat Patel, AVANA Capital’s co-founder and head of originations, said the investment will allow AVANA Capital to “bring Extensia’s expanded suite of products to our borrower clients and to offer a larger volume and variety of quality loan investment opportunities to Extensia’s network of credit union clients.”
Extensia, based in Northridge, Calif., 26 miles northwest of Los Angeles, connects credit unions with commercial real estate brokers, commercial mortgage brokers and high-net-worth investors through participation lending. It seeks credit unions looking to invest $2 million to $15 million to extend their portfolios beyond their communities, allowing them to mitigate concentration risk while increasing their loan-to-share ratio.
From January through September, Extensia Financial funded $137 million in loans with 27 participating credit unions — a volume greater than all of 2019.
Telesis Community Credit Union of Chatsworth, Calif., founded the CUSO in 1998 as CU Business Partners LLC. Telesis had $301.3 million in assets, 37,578 members and a “critically undercapitalized” net worth ratio of 1.27% on March 30, 2012. The California Department of Financial Institutions place it into conservatorship on March 23, 2012.
In November 2012, the CUSO’s ownership passed to three principal credit unions: Public Service Credit Union of Denver (now Canvas Credit Union), Farmers Insurance Group Federal Credit Union of Los Angeles and Great Lakes Credit Union of Chicago. In addition, the CUSO had 12 minority shareholder credit unions.
The NCUA’s Office of Inspector General released a report in 2013 that said factors leading to Telesis’ collapse included investing too heavily into member business loans, failing to properly calculate loan-loss allowances, depending too much upon Business Partners LLC, its business lending CUSO for revenue, and spending too much on operating expenses.
In 2015, the CUSO was renamed Extensia Financial.