Senior Professionals
Brian M. Smith
Managing Partner
Mr. Smith is the Managing Partner and co-founder of LCG and is responsible for the day to day operations as well as sales and marketing.
Mr. Smith brings to LCG extensive experience in corporate finance, most notably in the areas of commercial credit, underwriting, and due diligence. Mr. Smith was most recently a Vice President of Textron Financial Corporation. There he managed the structuring, underwriting, and due diligence processes for several operating divisions, including the Finance Company Services and Telecom and Energy Lending. The former, specialized in making loans to financial services firms and finance companies. There Mr. Smith completed numerous complex loans to a variety of finance businesses including asset-based lenders, factors, consumer lenders, retail lenders, and a myriad of other niche finance companies.
Mr. Smith was also appointed by executive management to lead portfolio and operations reviews of other divisions including Cessna Finance Company and TFCs resort, floor plan, and golf finance divisions. Prior, Mr. Smith was a principal and COO of Health Capital in New York; a company that specializes in providing financing to health care businesses nationwide. Early in his career he held various management positions with MediFin and Professional Factors in Tampa, Florida provided factoring, asset-based lending, and mezzanine financing. Mr. Smith was formerly the President of Association of Medical Finance Professionals and is a member of The University of Tampa’s Board of Counselors.
Mr. Smith holds Bachelors Degrees in Finance and Economics from the University of Tampa and has completed numerous industry-specific training programs. He is married with two children.
Paul I. Epstein
Managing Partner
Mr. Epstein is the Managing Partner and co-founder of LCG and is responsible for the day to day operations as well as sales and marketing.
Mr. Epstein has been instrumental in leading LCG to double digit growth for four straight years while implementing strict quality control measures. Under his leadership, Mr. Epstein has expanded LCG’s presence from Tampa, Florida to over 15 cities nationwide. In 2009, the Tampa Bay Business Journal listed LCG as #20 in their “Fast 50” Growing Companies list. In 2011, LCG was nominated by the Tampa Chamber of Commerce for the small business of the year award for the second time.
Prior to LCG, Mr. Epstein was the Executive Vice President of CitiFactors Financial Group, Inc. in Orlando, Florida where he was involved in developing CitiFactors into one of the leading niche commercial finance companies in the Southeast United States. He managed or was responsible for nearly all aspects of the business including the due diligence, client audits, account management, and operations. In addition to operational responsibilities, Mr. Epstein played a major role in the design and implementation of a sales and marketing plan. While sales increased, Mr. Epstein was able to maintain credit losses to negligible levels. He trained account executives and operations personnel in both credit policies and fraud detection.
Previously, Mr. Epstein was the Credit Manager at Professional Factor’s, Inc. and Healthcare Financial Services, Inc. in Tampa, Florida where he was responsible for credit policies, and asset recovery. Mr. Epstein earned his Bachelor’s in Finance from the University of Tampa.
Mike Xenick
Managing Partner
Mr. Xenick is a co-founder of LCG’s FINRA registered broker/dealer and manages the firm’s mergers and acquisitions advisory practice, as well as various strategic partnerships of the firm, including LCG’s South Florida/Latin American corporate advisory practice, its foreign investor practice, and its institutional capital placements practice that is focused on the commercial real estate and natural resources sectors.
Mr. Xenick brings over 20 years of investment banking and financial advisory experience to LCG. Before joining LCG in 2007, he was a Managing Director for five years at Atlantic American Capital Advisors, a Tampa-based investment bank, where he led many successful corporate finance and merger and acquisition transactions across multiple industries including media/telecommunications, information technology, software, specialty finance, food and concessions, post-secondary education, manufacturing, business services and nutritional health products.
Prior to joining Atlantic American, Mr. Xenick worked at Communications Equity Associates (CEA), a boutique global investment and merchant bank, where he served as a Vice President in CEA’s global investment banking practice for over eight years. After joining CEA in 1994, Mr. Xenick provided investment banking, private equity and strategic advisory services to CEA’s entertainment and new media clients in the U.S. and the Middle East, and was specifically responsible for the telecommunications, technology, Internet, and music industries, and successfully closed numerous middle-market private placements, corporate financing and merger and acquisition transactions within these industries.
Before CEA, Mr. Xenick worked for four years as a senior auditor for the international public accounting firm of Ernst & Young.
Mr. Xenick graduated from the University of Florida where he received both his Bachelor and Master degrees in Accounting. He is a Certified Public Accountant and a member of the American and Florida Institutes of CPAs and the Association for Corporate Growth (ACG), where serves as a Director of the ACG’s Tampa Bay chapter. Mr. Xenick is LCG’s Chief Compliance Officer and holds Series 24, 7, 79 and 63 securities registrations.
Clint Mitchell
Managing Director
Mr. Mitchell brings more than 12 years of corporate finance experience to LCG, having worked at private equity backed finance companies, startup specialty lenders, and large diversified finance companies. For the past seven years, Mr. Mitchell has focused on providing senior and junior capital for specialty finance companies, investment funds, and niche alternative lenders.
Most recently, Mr. Mitchell was Vice President at CIT Group, in its Financial Services Group. He has also held roles in business development, credit underwriting, portfolio management, and loan workout for First Capital, Textron Financial, and DMAC. Mr. Mitchell graduated with an economics degree from DePauw University, where he was an Honors Fellow for Management and Entrepreneurship. He is actively involved in local and national chapters of the ACG and the CFA.
Christopher Pizzo
Managing Director
Mr. Pizzo brings 20 years of experience working with middle market companies in finance and operations and has served as CEO and CFO of public and privately held companies. He has raised debt and equity capital, consummated mergers and acquisitions and executed successful turnarounds, restructurings and divestitures. These transactions amounted to in excess of $365 million and included a venture backed IPO (NASDAQ:KNOT) and the divestiture and sale of $250 million in commercial real estate assets.
Earlier in his career, Mr. Pizzo was a Senior Associate at Vested Capital Partners, an Audit Manager at Ernst & Young in the Entrepreneurial Services Group and an Audit Senior at Martin Rosen & Co., CPAs.
Mr. Pizzo holds an MBA from the Leonard N. Stern School at NYU and a BS in Accounting from the State University of New York at Albany. He is a Certified Public Accountant in New York (inactive). In addition, he holds his Series 79 securities registration.
Heather Long
Senior Vice President
Ms. Long brings over 15 years of commercial lending and corporate finance experience to LCG, having held various positions within Regions Bank, Bank of America and SunTrust Bank. During her banking career, she helped facilitate numerous transactions with equity and investment banking partners by providing senior debt and lines of credit. Areas of expertise include working capital lines of credit, asset based lending, construction lending, CRE term loans, foreign exchange hedging, interest rate hedging, M&A advisory, equity offerings, private equity, mezzanine financing, ex-im finance and treasury management.
Prior to entering the banking industry, Ms. Long worked at Morgan Stanley in New York, where she was responsible for marketing equities to Financial Advisors at the firm. Ms. Long specialized in technology stocks during the Internet boom of the late 1990s, but also had a comprehensive understanding of the companies covered by Morgan Stanley equity analysts, as well as macroeconomic factors impacting the markets.
Ms. Long graduated from the University of Florida where she received a Bachelors of Arts in Mathematics and an MBA with a concentration in Finance, as well as a Masters of Exercise and Sports Science.
Andrew Klassen
Vice President
Mr. Klassen’s background includes over 14 years of commercial lending and portfolio management with experience in all facets of commercial banking in both large commercial and community bank settings. Past client market segments include finance professionals, commercial real estate developers, middle market C&I, retail, SBA, non-profit and health care providers. Serving as Vice President of Commercial Lending at various lending institutions throughout the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area, Mr. Klassen has originated and managed over $40 million in commercial real estate development credit facilities, $50 million in term loans, $100 million in working capital lines of credit and collected over $10 million in loan workouts. Past responsibilities have included new businesses development, loan due diligence, loan structuring, preparation of legal documentation and account management.
Prior to entering the financial services industry, Mr. Klassen spent four years with Franklin Quest Co., a time management and corporate training company.
Mr. Klassen has Bachelor of Arts degree in History from St. John’s University and resides in Eagan, MN with his wife and three daughters.
Jeff Hultman
Advisor
Mr. Hultman was the Chief Executive Officer of Dial Page, Inc. where he transformed a traditional paging company into a broad based cellular wireless company. Hultman recognized the value of radio spectrum very early on. Hultman identified the opportunity to launch a digital wireless cellular business through filing of applications for 800 Mhz spectrum with the FCC and acquired more than a dozen two-way Specialized Mobile Radio businesses. At that time this spectrum was thought to be of limited value, however, by working with industry players and Motorola, IDENs protocol was developed and transformed the spectrum to a cellular like service while maintaining the push to talk capabilities of SMR. Dial Page consolidated their spectrum holdings, creating a geographic footprint in the Southeast and constructed a digital mobile network utilizing proprietary Motorola technology at a cost of over $500 million. While converting the 800 Mhz spectrum to a cellular like service Mr. Hultman simultaneously expanded the paging operations throughout seven Southeast states via multiple acquisitions and organic growth, achieving a cumulative growth rate in paging of 20% per year, growing revenues to in excess of $75 million with 38% margins and ARPU levels at approximately twice the industry average. Hultman led four successful public offerings, raising over $50 million in public and private equity and $650 million through public sale and private placement of high yield debt. Ultimately Dial Page merged with Nextel at an equity value of $1 billion.
Mr. Hultman was the Chief Executive Officer of PacTel Cellular, responsible for all Pacific Telesis cellular properties in the United States, including operations and business development. Hultman increased revenues from $100 million to over $1.0 billion in three years and achieved a 292% growth in customer base by implementing a multifaceted distribution channel comprised of resellers, retailers, agents and direct sales. Hultman directed PacTel’s successful business efforts to win the West Germany and United Kingdom PCS spectrum licenses over multiple applicants on the strength of a superior business plan and detailed technical system design for both countries. In addition, Hultman partnered with Qualcomm, Inc. to pioneer a new digital protocol based on Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) resulting in greater capacity and lower infrastructure cost.
Prior to becoming CEO, Hultman held various positions at Pacific Bell including among others Vice President of Operations where he managed the construction and maintenance of all telephone facilities in Northern California with an annual budget of over $450 million and an organization of 9,000 employees. Hultman achieved the highest customer service performance in company history while efficiently downsizing 1,000 employees. Hultman holds an MS in Business Management and a BS from the University of California.