Santander leads US$345m asset-based revolver for WTEC manufacturing expansion

Santander Bank has led a US$345m asset-based revolving credit facility for US manufacturer WTEC, providing working capital as the company expands across data centres, renewable energy and grid infrastructure.

Santander served as administrative agent, joint lead arranger and joint bookrunner, working with four other banks to structure the financing. The identities and individual commitments of the other lenders were not disclosed in the announcement.

The transaction gives WTEC a substantial asset-based liquidity pool as demand grows across sectors requiring large volumes of electrical and energy infrastructure.

Based in New Jersey, WTEC manufactures electrical cables, wires and steel products. It operates more than 12 manufacturing facilities covering about 2m square feet and supplies customers in the US and overseas.

The financing is intended to support further investment in US manufacturing and continued expansion across renewable energy, utilities, grid modernisation, data centres and AI-related infrastructure.

The scale of the new facility is particularly striking when set against the history of the Santander relationship.

Santander first provided WTEC with a US$100,000 working-capital line in 2005. The new US$345m revolver is therefore 3,450 times the size of the original line, although the comparison reflects more than two decades of WTEC’s growth and should not be interpreted as like-for-like borrowing growth.

WTEC chief financial officer Bonita Singh said the additional flexibility would support investment in manufacturing, innovation and customer service.

For asset-based lenders, the transaction illustrates how borrowing-base finance can accompany rapid industrial expansion. Manufacturers supplying cable, wire and related components must finance raw materials, production and inventory before collecting cash from customers, creating potentially substantial working-capital requirements as order volumes increase.

Santander has not disclosed the borrowing-base composition, advance rates, pricing, maturity or security package beyond describing the transaction as an asset-based revolving credit facility.

The deal nevertheless puts a sizeable ABL structure behind a manufacturer exposed to some of the fastest-growing areas of US physical infrastructure, including the electrical capacity required to support expanding data-centre construction.