If you haven’t asked your CPA about their AI strategy yet, now’s the time. A growing number of accounting firms, including small practices with fewer than 10 employees, are using AI tools to speed up tax research, automate bookkeeping, and free up time for higher-value......
By Michael McAdams, President, Pasadena Private Lending The first half of 2026 has been busy for PPL after we doubled our capital in late 2025. With that “dry powder,” besides increasing credit facilities to existing clients, we made loans to 16 new borrowers totaling over......
By Michael McAdams, President, Pasadena Private Lending At Pasadena Private lending, we are at our roots credit people. That means we are practical and a bit on the skeptical side. To quote a former U.S. President, we “are trusting but prefer to verify.” It also......
By Michael McAdams, President, Pasadena Private Lending We often hear from our many borrowers about what they are doing to minimize risks from a variety of computer security and cybercrime exposures. For example, we have seen hackers try to commandeer a borrower’s wire instructions and......
The five things a lender sees that you’ve stopped noticing By Brad Feldman, Managing Director, Pasadena Private Strategic Advisors Here’s a question most owners never ask themselves: If you weren’t running your business, would you lend it your own money? Not as the founder who......
Despite Headwinds Across the Private Credit Sector, PPL’s Disciplined Underwriting Model and Accelerating Origination Volume Drive a Historic Milestone Eight Years in the Making Pasadena Private Lending, Inc. (“PPL”), a leading direct private lender focused on entrepreneur-owned and lower middle-market businesses nationwide, today announced it......
Pasadena Private Lending (“PPL”), a leading direct private lender focused on serving entrepreneurs and business owners today announced that Glenn Freed, Ph.D., CPA has joined the firm as Chief Financial Officer. Freed brings decades of experience across accounting and executive management to PPL as the......
By Michael McAdams, President, Pasadena Private Lending We are asked a lot lately about what to expect from the economy in this time of Mideast war. But it isn’t clear if we are in a wartime economy or just in an economy impacted by wartime......
A Borrower Profile: FreeFall Aerospace and the Entrepreneurial Second Act of a JPL Pioneer There is a certain kind of entrepreneur who doesn’t set out to build a company – they simply reach a point where the opportunity is too important to ignore. For Doug......
Pasadena Private Lending is clearly in the private credit business. We are experienced lenders trained at a variety of major financial institutions and traditional banks, and frankly, the team are all refugees from firms that because of regulatory abuse by the few, the many were......
Two years ago, Pasadena Private Lending (PPL) was approached by a successful entrepreneur, Nicholas Canosa, through a well-known and respected intermediary. Nicholas had founded an advanced waste processing and recycling company and was seeking a loan to provide working capital for two technologically related spin......
Pasadena Private Lending, Inc. (“PPL”), one of Southern California’s leading private credit lenders to entrepreneur-owned businesses, today announced a national expansion strategy targeting $500 million in new loan commitments. The initiative builds on a successful 2025 capital raise and will establish a network of strategic......
By Michael McAdams, President, Pasadena Private Lending Let’s say you’re a hard-working entrepreneur who has had a few bad months for whatever the reasons (it happens to the best business owners). But you also have been trying for three years to acquire a competitor......
By David Moffat, Director, Pasadena Private Lending This week PPL attended the Secured Finance Network’s Asset-Based Capital Conference 2026 in Las Vegas, the premier annual gathering of asset-based and leveraged finance professionals. The event drew a highly engaged cross-section of the secured lending ecosystem,......
Pasadena Private Lending, Inc. (“PPL”), a leading private credit provider to lower middle-market businesses, and Eagle Point Credit Management LLC (“Eagle Point”), an innovative private credit investment manager, are pleased to announce that Eagle Point has become a strategic partner across the PPL capital structure, with......
Guidance from some of Harvard Business School’s best faculty minds Adapted by Michael McAdams from a December HBS posting by Dr. Rachel Layne In 2025, entrepreneurs were stretched with the challenges of inflation, tariffs and supply uncertainty, the hope (and risks) of applying new technological......
Pasadena Private Lending (“PPL”), a leading private credit provider to lower middle-market businesses, today announced a year of significant growth and continued borrower impact in 2025, reflecting strong demand for flexible, relationship-driven lending solutions across the U.S. During 2025, PPL financed 18 new borrowers, with commitments......
By Pasadena Private Lending President Mike McAdams Beyond the dating world, non-responsiveness has been creeping into the business world and, frankly, it is bad for business. A Korn Ferry International consulting firm journal article from October 2025 quotes the New York Times that the phenomenon......
By Pasadena Private Lending President Mike McAdams Pasadena Private Lending (PPL), as do all good businesses, try to maintain an even footing for positive client-relations when it comes to political issues. Given the amount of political news at the top of all our news feeds......
Pasadena Private Lending, Inc. (“PPL”), a leading provider of senior secured business loans to successful entrepreneurs nationwide, announced today that it has closed on a new $150 million credit facility with KeyBank, expandable to $300 million. This new facility grows PPL’s overall capital base from......
By Pasadena Private Lending President Mike McAdams A not-so-memorable comedy from back in 1963 with the memorable title “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” comes to mind in trying to chart the way forward from this month’s economic data. The movie involved an attempt......
Another installment of “Adventures in Entrepreneurism” brought to you by Pasadena Private Lending President Mike McAdams Besides helping start PPL and six other financial businesses throughout my career, back in 1989 I was a very early investor in larger, corporate, senior-secured, floating-rate loans for retail......
By Pasadena Private Lending President Mike McAdams Eddie Cochran released “Summertime Blues” in August of 1958. From an economic perspective, a weird coincidence seems to exist with today’s economy and with the economics of the summer that song debuted. Today’s environment also has a mixture......
Another installment of “Adventures in Entrepreneurism” brought to you by Pasadena Private Lending President Mike McAdams Guaranty: guar·an·ty – an undertaking to answer for the payment of a debt or the performance of a duty Many lenders require a Personal Guaranty or “PG” from borrowers......
We have emphasized in previous newsletters that Pasadena Private Lending (PPL) is an independently capitalized unit of the broader Pasadena Private Financial Group (PPFG), uniquely focused on the needs of successful business owners and their families PPL’s broader affiliation allows us to provide our borrowing......
Supporting Local Recovery in the Wake of the Eaton Fire Pasadena Private Lending Inc. (“PPL”), an affiliate of Pasadena Private Financial Group, is proud to announce its financial contribution and active partnership with Build Back Dena: The Business Resilience Project, a coordinated effort to support......
Underscoring Its Commitment to Entrepreneurial Growth and Long-Term Partnerships Pasadena Private Lending (PPL), a pioneer in the lower middle market lending space, proudly announces it has surpassed $300 million in loans closed since its founding. This milestone reflects the firm’s ongoing commitment to providing......
Another in a series of the realities of “Adventures in Entrepreneurism” from Pasadena Private Lending President Mike McAdams Living the dream of an entrepreneur has many rewards… even beyond the economic rewards that come at the end of the road. But as in all aspects......
By Mike McAdams, President, Pasadena Private Lending At Pasadena Private Lending (PPL), the team and I have decades of experience through many prior economic and market cycles. But while I will share experiences, wise or “otherwise” further down in this piece, in all candor, one......
PPL has for the last year utilized the services of Wiserfunding, a UK-based AI-tech firm that has licensed the famed NYU professor Dr. Ed Altman PhD’s Altman Z-Score for assessing credit quality in corporate borrowers. We should add that PPL is a proud friend of......
By Mike McAdams, President, Pasadena Private Lending This month I wanted to provide some clarity on the often-confused definition of the U.S. corporate middle market on which PPL focuses its lending efforts. We actually focus on the lower end of middle market corporate borrowers owned......
By Michael McAdams, President, Pasadena Private Lending I recently saw a Harvard Business School case study reviewing the Drexel Burnam Lambert push into leveraged or acquisition finance as spearheaded by the so-called Junk Bond King, Michael Milken. The case reviews the genesis of high yield/junk......
By Michael McAdams, President, Pasadena Private Lending The experienced management team at Pasadena Private Lending has been in unique positions throughout their careers to witness turning points in American debt capital markets. We believe we have paid particular attention to the developments of the past......
Securitization turns illiquid assets, like loans or leases, into tradable securities. For entrepreneurs, this unlocks capital that might otherwise sit idle, connecting untapped potential with actionable opportunity. As a financial instrument, securitization has quietly powered U.S. economic growth since its emergence in the 1970s. By......
Recent tariff announcements and discussions have significant implications for various sectors, particularly those relying on international trade and complex supply chains. Here’s a closer look at the sector-specific impacts: Manufacturing and Automotive: The manufacturing sector, especially automotive, heavy machinery, and consumer electronics, is facing substantial......
Pasadena Private Lending, LLC (“PPL”) is pleased to announce that it has recently closed on a $50 million secured term loan with SLR Capital Partners, LLC (“SLR”) an independent asset manager focused on providing capital solutions to U.S. based middle market businesses across direct lending......
Private lending in the U.S. continued to grow in 2024, building on its role as a critical alternative to traditional banking. Total assets in the private credit market, which includes direct lending and specialty finance, reached approximately $1.6 trillion and are projected to grow significantly......
Reflecting on the Opal Group’s Emerging Managers Summit By Michael McAdams, President, Pasadena Private Lending As credit people, and for that matter, as many of our readers are small to medium sized business owners with limited tolerance for unproductive investments of our time and money,......
By Michael McAdams, President, Pasadena Private Lending Historically, many statistical experts have put small-to medium-sized enterprises (or SMEs) into the middle of the classic statistical bell curve of risk. That is, SMEs are often placed in the medium-to-higher risk category, between low-frequency large corporate......
By Michael McAdams, President, Pasadena Private Lending Unlike many thought pieces that unveil an answer at the end, the answer to the question posed by the title is a simple, “it depends.” But how you get to the decision is the point. Much is written......