Meet Dave Goose with MDNA Premier Vendor, Manufacturers Capital, LLC

Let’s just say Dave Goose sees things a bit differently when it comes to financing equipment purchases.
 
Dave was the founder of Manufacturers Capital, LLC, which has been around since 2007, providing solutions to the unique needs of machinery sales concerns in the U.S. and Canada. And it’s among the latest businesses to be approved as a Premier Vendor for the MDNA.
 
Dave operates Manufacturers Capital from New Smyrna Beach, on Florida’s east coast. He co-founded the business with a partner and stayed on in his current capacity when Manufacturers was purchased in 2017 by Commercial Credit Corp. It’s now a division of Charlotte-based Commercial Credit.  
 
His career in finance began in 1980 in the commercial capital department at a south Florida bank. That’s when he discovered the world of machine tools and began concentrating his sales efforts there.  In 1989, he joined Maruka Machinery, the importer of Mori Seiki, and in 1997 moved into the emerging CNC market, where he opened his own used machine tool sales business, which expanded into new machine tools in 2001.
 
“Loved it, had a ball, but there's a lot more stress in selling machines than financing them,” he said in a recent conversation. “I jokingly tell people that nobody calls me on a Saturday, yelling that their money is not working. So, the finance business became much more attractive.”
 
In 2007 he put his own money to work with Manufacturers Capital, specializing in arranging loans and leases for equipment manufacturers and users that banks and other lenders might keep at arm’s length.
 
“We were mostly a brokerage then. but we took a lot of pride in coming up with products that other brokers didn’t have,” he recalls. “At Manufacturers Capital and with the founder and management of Commercial Credit Group we had the same philosophy, We were all disciples of the credit philosophy of a gentleman named Cal Palitz, who was the godfather of commercial capital equipment financing in the 1960s and ‘70s. He taught us to know your collateral and then know your credit. Before joining Commercial Credit, we put $5 to $6 million in private money toward what we call structured deals, which allow you to listen to the customer’s story and judge a credit or a customer's creditworthiness ‘from the shop floor up, not the balance sheet down.’ Now, as a division of Commercial Credit we funded 30 or 40 times more ‘structured’ transactions.
 
“We know the machines. We can tell if a shop is organized,” he explained. “There’s a ton of hidden equity not evident on the balance sheet that’s actually on the premises of a manufacturer. We can tell if a client is making quality parts by touring its facility. And that continues today with Commercial Credit.”

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