Mike Myatt of Pacific Security Capital

What exactly is structured finance? It really depends on whom you ask. But one thing’s for sure, whatever your definition, it has served Portland, OR-based Pacific Security Capital well. While the specific numbers are guarded, the investment bank boasts a 40% volume growth in 2004 and is on target to do the same in ’05. Doing the defining, and the boasting, is executive managing director Mike Myatt, a more-than two-year veteran of the firm (he confesses to taking a “dot-com hiatus like everyone else,” before coming to PSC) who agrees that the term can be confusing. He explained it all in a recent exclusive interview–and explained as well why the time is right for structured finance, however you define it.

GlobeSt.com: There’s a great deal of confusion over what exactly structured finance is. Why is that?

Myatt: There’s the global definition, what the street is trying to push on the market, and there’s a more accurate description. What is being pushed is the B and C piece of the capital structure–either the mezz or subordinated position–so anything junior to the senior portion of the capital structure is what the market calls structured finance. But the reality is that every deal is structured. It’s anything that isn’t plain-vanilla senior debt–bridge or interim situations, equity pieces, mezz pieces and hybrid structures.