Elm City Partners LLC is pleased to announce that we have entered into a strategic alliance with Northern Lights Partners, LLC (www.northernlightspartners.com).

Northern Lights Partners is a corporate finance advisory firm specializing in raising debt and equity capital for middle market companies throughout the USA and Europe, and assisting global financial institutions to identify market opportunities, build successful business platforms, divest underperforming assets and exit non-strategic businesses.

Through this strategic alliance, we will expand and augment our current product offerings to our respective clients and referral sources.

"Our alliance with Northern Lights Partners enables us to become a full services provider to our clients. Along with offering traditional workout and turnaround services, we will be able to facilitate financial restructures seamlessly within our own organization," stated Joe Palazzi, founder and President of Elm City Partners.

"The addition of Elm City Partners will enable us to solve corporate renewal and provide distressed advisory to our clients along with our current product offerings. With over 150 years experience collectively, we are extremely excited about this opportunity," stated Sam Cirelli , one of the founders and Managing Partners of Northern Lights Partners.

More About Northern Lights Partners
Northern Lights Partners, LLC, is a financial advisory firm that covers two primary areas:

• Helping U.S. and European middle-market companies meet their short-term liquidity needs and long-term growth objectives by raising debt and equity and by providing highly detailed strategic advice.
   
• Assisting global financial institutions identify market opportunities, build successful business platforms, divest underperforming assets and exit non-strategic businesses.

As financiers and advisors to the middle-market, their Partners have assisted companies in a wide range of industries navigate through every sort of challenge and economic climate a business can face. Their team has trusted relationships with worldwide sources of debt and equity capital. These relationships give them the up-to-the-minute market intelligence needed to craft thoughtful and effective solutions to clients' business and financing needs.

As executives for global financial institutions, their Partners have started up and run platform businesses. They have developed and implemented business plans, built corporate infrastructures, hired teams, wrote operating and credit manuals and interfaced with regulators. They can help financial institutions preserve and create value.

Biographies

• Sam Cirelli, Managing Partner, has over 25 years of experience originating, structuring and managing financings for middle market companies in the U.S. and Europe. In the past 10 years, Sam was recruited by two major European banks to launch, create and lead corporate banking, trading and lending platform businesses in the U.S. He is a seasoned executive who has arranged financings for clients to support acquisitions, growth, leveraged buyouts, debtors-in-possession, plans of reorganization, distressed debt, cash flow, working capital and turnarounds. During his career, Sam has overseen and completed more than 700 transactions across diverse industries. He was ranked as one of the most active senior lenders in the U.S. leveraged finance market by Private Equity Magazine.
  
  Sam started his career at Lloyds Bank as a financial analyst and spent 12 years with Manufacturers Hanover (now part of JP Morgan Chase) and The CIT Group (after its acquisition by Manufacturers Hanover), serving in increasingly responsible roles in auditing, credit underwriting and loan portfolio management. Sam next joined GMAC Commercial Finance as Global Marketing Director and EVP. He led over 25 marketing officers, regional managers and underwriters throughout the U.S. and Europe. After GMAC, Sam went to Wells Fargo Foothill, Inc. and helped build brand value for the bank in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. During his tenure at Wells Fargo, he originated and structured loans to middle market companies owned by private equity groups, hedge funds and individual investors.
  
  Sam was then recruited by Royal Bank of Scotland to start up and serve as President of RBS Business Capital, a middle market lending platform. He built a team and an infrastructure for a business that generated positive cash flow within 6 months and exceeded plan by over 150%. Sam also served as the National Sales Director for HSBC Business Credit where he was instrumental in building a loan origination platform.
  
  Most recently, Sam was recruited by Landsbanki, a large Icelandic Global Bank, to establish a U.S. bank holding company focused on leveraged loans, second lien loans, and asset based finance in the U.S. and Europe, as well as money market, fixed income and foreign exchange trading. Here, too, he was successful in building a business platform that generated significant shareholder value, exceeding plan by 420%.
  
  Sam has been a part-time adjunct professor at New York University, teaching Harvard Case Studies in Corporate Finance. He holds a B.S. degree in Finance and an M.B.A. degree from St. John's University. He served on the Board of Directors for the New York Chapter of the Turnaround Management Association and was a Committee Chairperson and Board member for the New York Chapter of the Association for Corporate Growth. Sam also served on the National Board of Directors for American Bankruptcy Institute..
   
• David Kaplowitz, Managing Partner, has been helping companies with their liquidity needs for over 25 years. He has worked in concert with management teams, entrepreneurs, private equity sponsors and their advisors to structure financial solutions both simple and complex. David began his career with Manufacturers Hanover (now part of JP Morgan Chase), where he completed its credit training program and served in credit and business development roles. Subsequent to its acquisition by Manufacturers Hanover, he joined The CIT Group, where he served roles in credit, underwriting, structuring and business development. David was one of the founders of CIT's LBO finance group.
  
  After a long tenure at CIT, David moved to GMAC Commercial Finance, where he served as New York regional marketing manager under Sam Cirelli. He was then recruited by Bank One, where he established a New York office for asset based lending. After Bank One's acquisition by JP Morgan, David joined The Royal Bank of Scotland, where he was part of a team headed by Sam Cirelli that founded RBS Business Capital, a U.S. asset based lending business. After RBS, David established New York offices for La Salle Retail Finance, and then for National City Business Credit. Most recently he was part of a team headed by Sam Cirelli to establish a commercial lending and trading operation in the U.S. for Landsbanki.
  
  David has a B.S. degree in Communications from Boston University, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude, and attended NYU Graduate School of Business. He is a member of the Turnaround Management Association, the Association of Corporate Growth, the Commercial Finance Association and the American Bankruptcy Institute.
   
• Lana Teplitz, Managing Partner and CFO, brings an extensive background in corporate finance, research and accounting, with nearly 20 years of financial management experience. Lana has worked with private middle market companies and their accountants to complete management buyouts and enhance corporate profitability. She has been responsible for managing treasury functions with leveraged companies and managed all banking relationships from the borrower's perspective.
  
  Prior to joining Northern Lights Partners, Lana served as the Financial Controller for Landsbanki in the New York Office. In addition, she held senior financial management positions with leading middle market publicly traded companies in the United States. Lana provides capital and debt research capabilities to Northern Lights Partners and serves as Chief Administrative and Financial Officer.
  
  Lana holds a B.S. in Economics and Finance and is a certified Personal Income Tax Professional.