This week we chatted with Barry Bobrow, Managing Director, head of Loan Sales and Syndications, Wells Fargo Capital Finance. Wells Fargo Capital Finance is one of the largest providers of asset-based loans to large, middle market and small companies in the United States.

The Lead Left: Barry, it’s been a while since we last caught up. How was 2014 for the industry?

Barry Bobrow: Thanks for the opportunity to speak with you, Randy. Last year was an extremely good year for asset-based lending. According to Thomson Reuters, there was around $93 billion in volume for syndicated deals, representing 352 transactions. Both of those metrics are up from 2013. In fact, the number of deals done was the second highest ever, after 2011 when there was a lot of jumbo refinancing volume from the pre-2009 period.

TLL: Were there jumbo deals done last year?

BB: The ABL market had twenty deals greater than $1 billion each close last year. That’s a record. Most were upsizings of existing deals. The overall market capacity was clearly up. That’s a very big story in our business. In fact there were two deals that closed in the market that