- 1Maxim named Lyndon Elam COO and Donald Cosenza SVP of Business Development.
- 2The lender finances equipment and real estate-secured deals from $10,000 to $3 million.
- 3New, broader credit guidelines are planned for early 2026.
Maxim Commercial Capital, a Los Angeles lender focused on hard-asset-secured financing, grew its team by 21% during 2025 and said Jan. 20, 2026 that it has added Lyndon Elam as chief operating officer and Donald Cosenza as senior vice president of business development.
Leadership and team
CEO Michael Kianmahd said the company started 2025 with a plan to invest in its people and also expanded its operations and accounting staff. He described Elam and Cosenza as experienced leaders who can help carry the company into 2026 and beyond, with the goal of becoming the nation's preeminent alternative lender to small and mid-sized businesses.
Elam said the team plans to put new credit guidelines in place early in 2026, offering a broader and deeper credit spectrum across heavy equipment verticals for borrowers and for its vendor and finance broker referral partners.
The business
Maxim, founded during the 2008 financial crisis and privately owned, provides loans and leases from $10,000 to $3 million secured by over-the-road trucks, trailers, construction and agricultural equipment, and real estate. It says it stayed a reliable funding source through 2025's turbulence from interest rate shifts, a slowdown, trucking market disruption and tariffs. It credits its 17-year record to funding non-prime customers, including startups and borrowers with challenged credit, serving its referral network of equipment vendors and finance brokers, and offering creative structures such as no-cash-down deals backed by excess equipment or real estate.
We are looking forward to deploying new credit guidelines in early 2026.
Sample deals
Maxim cited several 2025 transactions:
- Full purchase financing of a $200,000 2022 Isuzu FTR fitted out for cleaning trash bins, for a 20-year-old New York waste management company with four trucks and a $1.0 million contract pending, secured by a first lien on the truck and the owners' home.
- A $110,000 real estate-secured term loan that refinanced $99,000 in high-rate MCA loans for a stone and garden retail and landscaping business, cutting debt service by $2,400 a month.
- A $42,000 title loan on a 2020 Peterbilt 567 cement mixer to fund repairs on a truck bought at auction.
Class 8 truck loans and leases reached experienced and startup owner-operators in 41 states. Examples included a $52,000 2021 Peterbilt 579 at 25% down for an owner-operator with under two years in business, a 725 FICO and charged-off credit cards, and a $42,000 2020 Freightliner Cascadia replacement truck at 25% down for a customer with a 542 FICO.
More at maximcc.com.
Source reporting: deBanked.
