ENSO Advisors

What We Do

ENSO Advisors provides analysis, solutions, and support for banking, commercial real estate, early stage ventures, and turnaround situations.

Our company is made up of attorneys, certified public accountants, bankers, structured finance and underwriting professionals, financial analysts, and entrepreneurs. Our Managing Directors each have over twenty years experience in a wide variety of banking, commercial real estate finance, debt restructuring, law, start-up ventures, and corporate operations. The diversity of our experience provides a broad frame of reference for defining issues and developing solutions.

Let ENSO Advisors lend its perspective to your organization.

Financial Institutions

Financial Institution Support

Competitive pressure and the search for yield forced many community and regional banks to seek opportunity in the booming Commercial Real Estate Market. Many banks invested heavily in CRE loans, often exceeding 300% of capital, and have relied on future financing as a primary source of collection. In today’s frozen credit markets, banks are under significant fire from their regulators, boards of directors, and shareholders to gain control over their CRE loan portfolios, make adequate and conservative reserves for future loses, manage risk, and maximize recovery.

To that end, ENSO Advisors can assist your bank in accomplishing these critical and time sensitive objectives:

Portfolio Analysis & External Loan Review
ENSO Advisors can directly support your efforts to improve and refine your Commercial Real Estate Risk Management policies and procedures and help you to develop a strategic approach to managing your current portfolio. Our analytical approach begins with clearly and succinctly identifying your portfolio risk stratified by loan type, risk grading, underlying collateral type, geographic dispersion, and guarantor concentrations. We compare these to your overall CRE investment strategy and concentration limits and, where appropriate, assist you in revising your investment policy to better reflect management’s future lending and risk management objectives. Our goal is to provide a thorough assessment of your portfolio and a framework for ongoing risk management that will satisfy the most demanding scrutiny.
Loan Valuation & Stress Testing
ENSO Advisors has a depth of experience to provide significant and detailed individual loan stress testing and sensitivity analysis to quantify the impact of changing economic conditions on asset quality, earnings and capital. Our analysis is grounded in current market data, on-site property inspections, and detailed analysis of borrower and guarantor financial statements – all with the goal of having realistic and supportable allocations to your ALLL for your criticized assets.
Strategic Collection Planning
In the course of our analysis of your portfolio and the unique aspects of the individual loans, ENSO Advisors can develop a strategic plan to realize value from individual loans or groups of loans. Our experience with loan workout, asset management, and loan pool sales ensures that your bank will understand its options and have the best possible insight into its alternatives.
CRE Risk Management Policy Development
ENSO Advisors can enhance the ongoing management of risk in your bank by helping you to develop robust policies and procedures for:
- CRE Underwriting Standards
- Appraisal, Appraisal Review and Re-Appraisal Requirements
- Credit Risk Rating, Non-Accrual Recognition and ALLL
- Participations
- Construction Loan Administration
- Quarterly Loan Review
- Problem Loan Management

Commercial Real Estate

Commercial Real Estate Finance

In today’s difficult credit markets, access to capital has perhaps become the single most critical component for a viable project. Successfully securing debt or equity to further a development hinges on the realistic determination of today’s value and rational projections for future economic benefits. ENSO Advisors has extensive relationships throughout the capital markets and can help you identify the equity partner or source of debt financing that will enable you to weather the current market and thrive during the inevitable recovery.

ENSO Advisors invests heavily to stay abreast of current underwriting requirements, deal structures, terms, and capital pricing. We are adept at packaging commercial real estate transactions in a manner that maximizes financing opportunities and minimizes cost. ENSO Advisors can help you with:

Capital Markets Exposure
Strategic Project Positioning and Strategy
Project Recapitalization and Debt Restructuring Plans
Valuation Analysis from a Capital Markets Perspective

Distressed Portfolio Due Diligence

Turmoil creates opportunity. The Principals at ENSO Advisors have deep experience rooted in the last financial crisis and have had instrumental roles in identifying distressed portfolio acquisition opportunities, conducting due diligence, and in developing pricing models. We have the distinction of then living with the results of those decisions and proving out the underlying assumptions through actual collections.

Acquiring distressed commercial real estate loan portfolios involves a significant commitment of time to identify opportunities and to understand market pricing dynamics and deal structures. When a realistic opportunity is finally identified, the time available to determine value and identify risk is extremely compressed. Adding ENSO Advisors to your investment strategy can help you make the best possible investment decisions in the shortest possible time by providing:

Opportunity Screening and Competitive Analysis
Acquisition Specific Due Diligence
Dynamic Data Driven Valuation Modeling
Acquisition to Asset Management Assimilation
Portfolio Management & Collection

Who We Are

ENSO (pronounced en • so) is a Japanese word meaning “circle” and a symbol strongly associated with the Zen tradition. This tradition is rooted in the concepts of enlightenment, strength, elegance, and a continuing action through time. ENSO Advisors embraces these same concepts in the delivery of solutions for our clients. We strive to think clearly, provide accurate and insightful analysis, develop pragmatic and efficient solutions, and to seek constant improvement.

ENSO Advisors is made up of attorneys, certified public accountants, bankers, structured finance and underwriting professionals, financial analysts, and entrepreneurs. Our Managing Directors each have over twenty years experience in a wide variety of banking, commercial real estate finance, debt restructuring, law, start-up ventures, and corporate operations. The diversity of our experience provides a broad frame of reference for defining issues and developing solutions.

Our Managing Directors

Clay Wilson

Mr. Wilson has been involved in institutional commercial real estate for over 20-years. His experience includes loan portfolio management, asset management, loan servicing, and debt restructuring.

Mr. Wilson began his real estate career with Kenneth Leventhal & Company (now Ernst & Young) and later managed over $1 billon in troubled commercial real estate assets resulting from the largest savings & loan failure in history for the FSLIC. Mr. Wilson also provided asset management services to the RTC and assisted opportunistic buyers in the successful due diligence, bid, purchase and collection of over $100 million in distressed assets. Mr. Wilson has also served as portfolio manager for over $300 million in distressed commercial real estate assets for regional banks.

Mr. Wilson earned a BBA in Accounting and a BA in Economics from Southern Methodist University and is licensed as a Certified Public Accountant in Texas.

Don Jones

Mr. Jones has been involved commercial real estate law for over 20-years. He has experience with all aspects of transactional law including acquisition, disposition, brokerage, loan structuring, lease negotiations, and foreclosure.

He has been practicing real estate law in Texas and Louisiana since 1988. Don was licensed as a Texas salesperson in 2001 and as a broker in 2007. He has worked for title companies, a publicly-traded REIT and large and small law firms. He is presently a partner with Wilensky & Jones, LLP, a Dallas-based law firm specializing in real estate and transactional law.

Don graduated from Louisiana State University in 1984 with a B.S. in Business Administration - Finance and from the Louisiana State University - Paul M. Hebert Law School in 1988. He was awarded the LSU Alumni Association Scholarship as an undergraduate in 1982.

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