Monroe Capital Leads $60 Million Term Loan for 36th Street Capital

Monroe Capital has led a $60 million Class B term loan for 36th Street Capital, giving the equipment-finance company additional funding to expand originations and its platform. The Chicago-based private credit manager said it arranged the financing on behalf of its investment funds.

36th Street Capital, known as 36SC, provides structured equipment leases and loans to large and mid-sized businesses across the United States. The companies did not disclose the term loan’s interest rate, maturity, amortization schedule or other economic terms, so the public announcement does not show the cost or duration of the new funding.

In its September 17 announcement, Monroe said the Class B term loan will support 36SC’s continued origination growth and platform expansion. The lender also said Aaron Levy and Chris Spanel led the investment for Monroe, where they focus on equipment finance within the firm’s Alternative Credit Solutions Group.

The loan adds funding capacity for 36SC’s origination model

The financing is aimed at the funding side of 36SC’s business rather than at a specific equipment purchase. Equipment-finance companies need reliable capital to keep writing new leases and loans, and 36SC says its model combines its own balance-sheet capital with funding from outside partners to match the size and structure of customer needs.

That model makes access to partner capital important as originations grow. On its website, 36SC says it can invest in positions of up to $25 million on its own balance sheet and use its syndication network to facilitate financings of $100 million or more. The new $60 million term loan therefore adds a meaningful source of capital at the platform level, although Monroe and 36SC did not specify how quickly the proceeds are expected to be deployed.

36SC was founded in 2015 and is headquartered in Morristown, New Jersey. The company says it has funded more than $1 billion since inception and served more than 100 customers. It is also a joint venture affiliate of BlackRock TCP Capital Corp., according to 36SC’s website.

36th Street focuses on essential-use equipment

Monroe described 36SC’s portfolio as diversified across manufacturing, technology, healthcare, construction, and food and beverage. The common thread is essential-use equipment, meaning assets that customers rely on to operate their businesses rather than discretionary purchases that can easily be postponed without affecting core operations.

36SC’s investment approach targets both private and publicly traded companies, including sponsored and non-sponsored borrowers. The firm says it generally focuses on middle-market companies with annual revenue of $100 million or more and works across investment-grade and non-investment-grade credits.

Its financing structures include buyout leases, fair-market-value capital and operating leases, sale-leasebacks and structured credit facilities. That range allows the company to finance new equipment, refinance or monetize equipment already owned by a customer, and tailor maturities to the asset and borrower. 36SC says its collateral can include both new and existing equipment.

The focus on essential equipment is also relevant to the credit profile of the platform. Assets such as manufacturing machinery, healthcare equipment or technology infrastructure can be central to a borrower’s ability to generate revenue. That does not remove credit or collateral risk, but it gives equipment lenders a defined asset base alongside the borrower’s underlying ability to repay.

The broader equipment-finance market has been running at a strong pace in 2026. The Equipment Leasing & Finance Association reported seasonally adjusted new business volume of $14.3 billion among surveyed member companies in July, 24.5% above the previous monthly high. Year-to-date volume was up 16.8% from the same period of 2025, and ELFA projected $137.3 billion of new volume for the full year.

That backdrop helps explain why funding capacity matters for originators even when demand is healthy. ELFA said the main second-half risk for the industry was the cost of funds rather than a shortage of demand. For a non-bank equipment-finance platform such as 36SC, access to longer-term capital partners can therefore affect how much new business it can support and the economics of that growth.

Monroe continues to build its specialty-finance exposure

The 36SC loan fits Monroe’s broader push into asset-backed and specialty finance. In the September announcement, Monroe said its equipment-finance team provides debt, forward-flow and equity solutions to platforms across small-, mid- and large-ticket equipment leasing markets. That gives the manager several ways to provide capital beyond a conventional corporate loan.

Monroe has used that strategy with other equipment-finance platforms. In July 2025, the firm led a $100 million minority preferred-equity investment in NFS Capital, an equipment-financing and asset-backed lender serving small and mid-sized businesses in the United States and Canada. Monroe said at the time that the investment represented its Specialty Finance division within the Alternative Credit Solutions Group.

The firm’s scale has also increased. In a May 2026 announcement, Monroe said it had more than $24 billion in assets under management as of April 1 across a private-credit platform with more than 45 investment vehicles. Its strategies include direct lending, alternative credit, venture debt, structured credit, real estate and equity.

For 36SC, the immediate effect of the new loan is additional capital intended to support a larger origination pipeline and further platform growth. The announcement did not identify other lenders in the facility or provide a timetable for deploying the proceeds. It also did not disclose pricing or maturity, leaving the economics of the Class B term loan private even though its stated growth purpose is clear.