Allegiance Financial Group (AFG) is a financial service company that specializes in equipment and accounts receivable financing. We focus on industries we know. We help our customers meet their financing needs, remarket their equipment, and manage their financial portfolios.
Our founder John Seibel, has over 20 years of experience in the equipment finance industry. John joined Cargill Leasing in 1990 and in 1995 began managing a team within Cargill’s Specialty Finance Group. The Specialty Finance Group (SFG) started in 1990 as part of Cargill Leasing Corporation (CLC) within the financial services division of Cargill, Inc. CLC had been providing equipment financing since 1974. Cargill is a world-wide food conglomerate and continues to be one of the largest privately held companies in the world.
In June 1998, Cargill was presented with the opportunity to sell the profitable CLC for a large gain. Cargill took the opportunity and sold the $2 billion equipment finance company to Firstar Bank, N.A. of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. CLC would become Firstar’s exclusive equipment finance division. Over the next three years, Firstar went through several mergers and acquisitions which affected the equipment finance operations. In the fall of 1998 Firstar merged with Star Bank, N.A. out of Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1999, the company merged with Mercantile Bank of St. Louis. And lastly, in 2000, the company merged with U.S. Bancorp out of Minneapolis, Minnesota. This created the fifth largest banking company and the eighth largest equipment finance company in the country.
SFG lived up to its name as specializing in specific industries. Under John’s leadership, the group focused on equipment financing for the transportation, construction, refuse, and corporate aircraft industries. Because of its specialized nature, the original group employed in SFG in the Cargill days, would continue through all the mergers and acquisitions. By the summer of 2001, the SFG portfolio had grown to $1 billion with close to 5,000 customers. This represented a significant piece of the then $8 billion US Bancorp Leasing and Financial.
Allegiance Financial Group was founded on the opportunity to continue to serve the needs of its customers in a manner to which it had become accustomed. AFG has continued to meet those needs since its founding in 2001.