Auto credit lender lands significant funding

Consumer Portfolio Services, an Irvine, California-based auto lender, announced in late December that it had acquired an additional $120 million that will add greater liquidity to the market, according to the Orange County Business Journal. According to the Journal, the company plans to direct all of the money into auto financing by channeling it as bonds on Wall Street. Consumer Portfolio Services will have that position after entering into a two-year, $100 million warehouse deal with affiliates of Goldman Sachs and Fortress Investment Group. The other $20 million sum was achieved through a debt financing partnership with Los Angeles-based Levine Leichtman Capital Partners, the paper details. "These transactions provide additional liquidity to continue the growth plan we have discussed in recent quarters. In addition, they should facilitate our return as a regular issuer in the term securitization market," CPS president and CEO Charles Bradley Jr. said in a statement. Consumer Portfolio, which lost much of its ability to sell loans during the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009, possesses a market value of $18 million. It makes loans to auto buyers and then bundles the loans for sale to investors.