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New public auto-loan firm in works: White River to buy failed Union Acceptance.

Article Excerpt
A new public company is rising from the ashes of Union Acceptance Corp., the failed east-side car-financing company, and is preparing to raise $35 million through a stock offering.

White River Capital Inc., which will operate from UAC's former headquarters on North Shadeland Avenue, has agreed to buy out UAC's shareholders for $3.1 million in stock and to buy Virginia-based auto lender Coastal Credit LLC for $50 million in cash.

"It's a tough industry, a hyper-competitive industry," White River President Mark Ruh said of auto lending. "But if you are smart and nimble, it's a good industry."

Ruh knows the tribulations of the field first hand. He is a principal in Castle Creek Capital, an Indianapolis private equity firm specializing in financial services companies, which had a 14-percent stake in Union Acceptance when it drove into bankruptcy court in October 2002.

UAC, formed as an arm of Union Federal Bank of Indianapolis in 1986 and spun out in a 1995 initial public offering, employed more than 600 people before waves of loan losses sent it into...

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