Not every decision to outsource servicing starts with a crisis. Sometimes it starts with a company that's ready to grow rapidly and honest about what it’ll take to get there.
For KLC Financial, a Minnesota-based equipment finance company, the decision to outsource servicing was strategic. After 15 years of steady, profitable growth, the company made a deliberate call to scale. And when they took an honest look at what that required, one thing became clear: their servicing operation wasn't built for where they were going.
What followed was a partnership with Concord that would prove its value not once, but twice, under two of the most demanding conditions a lender can face.
KLC Financial spent its first 15 years doing exactly what it set out to do: running a profitable, well-managed equipment finance operation and growing on its own terms.
Around 2016, that wasn't enough, they wanted more. Leadership made an intentional decision to push toward institutional-grade performance, which meant upgrading nearly every component of the business:
Servicing was the last piece, and the most consequential.
When KLC evaluated their servicing operation against where the business was heading, the foundation wasn't built for what came next.
The options were straightforward: build a full contract management system in-house or find the right partner.
KLC didn't need to own servicing. They needed it executed at a higher standard than they could efficiently build internally. Building an in-house function would have pulled focus from origination, credit, and dealer relationships while introducing compliance complexity that had nothing to do with what made KLC good at its business.
When they evaluated Concord, three things stood out:
The decision was clear: partner rather than build. KLC couldn't have anticipated what came next. No one could.
Ten weeks after going live with Concord, the pandemic shut down offices across the country. For a company that had just completed a major servicing transition, the timing could have been catastrophic. Instead, it became one of the most important proof points in KLC's history.
With Concord managing servicing externally, KLC's internal team stayed focused on what mattered most during those early weeks: keeping borrowers supported and the business moving. Small businesses were under enormous pressure. Borrowers needed answers, reassurance, and access to capital, often all at once. KLC needed to show up for them, and they did.
Servicing operations held without interruption as the world shifted around them. Spencer reflected on what that meant for the business: "Having the servicing outsourced was a huge relief. It really boosted the business and the service we were providing to our customers."
As markets stabilized and post-pandemic equipment demand surged, KLC was positioned to capture the moment. With a new CRM, LOS, and servicing all fully operational, the platform could handle the volume without pulling resources from origination or credit. The systems were already in place. KLC moved fast while competitors were still sorting out their operations.
The people at Concord have your best interest in mind, and they are going to get you there.
- Spencer Thomas, CEO, KLC Financial
In August 2022, approximately 2.5 years after onboarding with Concord, KLC Financial was acquired by a large bank.
Bank acquirers don't approach diligence the way other buyers do. They compress years of operational scrutiny into weeks. Every dollar in, every dollar out, traced, documented, and validated in real time.
For a privately held company without dedicated diligence systems, that process can stretch into months of back-and-forth that slows the deal and introduces risk.
Concord's role in the process was direct:
The result: Diligence closed in approximately 2.5 months against an industry norm of five to six months for comparable companies. Spencer estimates Concord's involvement saved 15 to 30 days in the process.
"Time kills deals, and every day you can expedite that process is a win. We had multiple days of improvement." — Spencer Thomas, President, KLC Financial
Clean data, real credentials, and a servicer prepared to stand behind the work. That's what moved the process forward.
In 2.5 years, KLC went from a manually operated servicing function to an institutional-grade platform that held steady through a pandemic, captured a post-pandemic market surge, and cleared bank-level acquisition diligence in roughly half the typical time.
With Concord's support, KLC walked into acquisition diligence with clean data, verified credentials, and a servicing partner prepared to answer for every dollar of it. The impact was material and measurable. Company growth, portfolio valuation, shareholder value, and a clean exit, all traceable back to the operational foundation behind it.
Scaling a lending operation shouldn't require rebuilding your servicing model along the way. Concord supports lenders with the systems, credentials, and operational depth to perform at every stage, from growth through exit.
Ready to Partner Rather Than Build?]