Management Team and Board Affiliations >>
Gateway One Lending & Finance (GOLF) is a Delaware LLC, founded by G. Brian MacInnis and David G. MacInnis, to take advantage of the missing link in today’s highly competitive automobile financing arena. The MacInnis’ have 50 years of automobile financing experience and intend to build another successful venture, as they have previously done through their former company Onyx Acceptance Corporation. Brian was the original CEO/Chairman of the Board of Onyx and also ran the auto finance division for Western Financial Services as Executive Vice President prior to starting Onyx. GOLF has raised $20 million from equity investors and has secured a warehouse line of $175 million with the ability to grow to $300 million at the company’s discretion.
Mergers and consolidations within the industry have left a huge void in the auto finance business. GOLF with their knowledge, expertise and contacts in the industry has an opportunity to fill this void.
The acquisitions and consolidation of competitors in our space these past years, are an example of the changing landscape of automobile financing in the United States. We believe these changes are providing a space for a competitor like GOLF to take market share in the automobile finance industry.
The big players will continue to acquire regional banks and other financial institutions with the objective of building market share. This strategy is a good one, but also provides opportunity. Their model depends on building market share through low-cost/low-touch solutions. Utilizing artificial computer models, and Integrated Business Solutions (IBS), they can model loan practices without the need for human interaction with dealerships.
These large finance companies are doing away with the high-touch approach and gambling on their ability to make up for their shortcomings by obtaining a greater share of the market. This approach limits the financing options available to the dealers, and ultimately consumers, by lowering their costs with systems and processes in the hope they can dominate the automobile lending space.
GOLF will provide automobile financing to new and used car dealerships. The company’s strategy is to provide new and used car dealerships with an alternative to the current lending situation. GOLF will combine a business model of “high touch/high-tech” resources to an industry that has turned high-tech specific.
GOLF will fill this void by using highly-trained personnel, who understand the intricacies of personal financial situations and local economic conditions in the regions they serve, to provide financing for select loans rejected because they do not meet the cookie-cutter solutions of large financial institutions. GOLF will launch their start up in a region of the country they already have experience in—Southern California, Nevada and select markets in Georgia and the Carolinas. Our sales staff is committed to being available to you the dealers during all working hours.