Palmer Hamilton Was a Constant Advocate for the Factoring Industry

Palmer Hamilton’s legacy will be felt outside of factoring, but his work on behalf of the American Factoring Association led to major victories that will leave a lasting impression for the industry.

BY PHIL NEUFFER

The factoring industry lost one of its most effective champions in October, as Palmer Hamilton, a longtime lobbyist for the American Factoring Association, passed away.

"Palmer was our lobbyist since the very beginning of the organization and became a friend to all of us,” Cole Harmonson, president of the AFA, said in a press release following Hamilton’s passing. “His knowledge, kindness and generosity of spirit will not be forgotten. He was always there when we needed him. He leaves a tremendous legacy through all he accomplished and everyone he guided, and we will miss him greatly.”

As Harmonson says, Hamilton helped the AFA gets its start and during more than a decade working with the association, along with the International Factoring Association and members of the industry, helped lead it to some important victories.

The AFA, which is the lobbying arm of the IFA, was founded in 2009. At the time, Allen Frederic, now managing director of corporate finance at Infinity Financial Group, assumed the mantle of president, with Hamilton serving as one of his top advisors. Frederic eventually passed the presidency to Harmonson, who is also of the co-founder and CEO of DARE Capital Partners, in 2020, but during his time at the head of the AFA, he got to witness Hamilton in action on many occasions.

“The whole reason for setting up the American Factoring Association, was advocacy so that we could educate some people on Capitol Hill as to what factoring was and how factoring helps small business in the economy,” Frederic says. “Palmer was great at orchestrating what's the message going to be to this person. He's irreplaceable. There's nobody that has Palmer's background, Palmer's contacts.”

In his time as president, Harmonson also got to know and understand all that Hamilton did on behalf of the factoring industry at the federal level.

"Palmer represented the AFA from the outset of the organization and was extremely instrumental in establishing the relationships that we have in Washington, D.C., that allowed us to effect change for the industry of factoring. Without him, I think it would've been much more difficult to communicate.” Harmonson says.

As Harmonson further explains, for a long time, the factoring industry had “no natural predators,” so there was no real need for a lobbying organization, but with the advent of the merchant cash advance product and the fallout of the 2008 financial crisis, things began to change, forcing the factoring industry (and the IFA more specifically) to desire a better standing in Washington. Hamilton helped accelerate what could have been a slow and difficult process to establish such a standing.

“Palmer helped us professionalize our lobbying efforts and helped us understand the landscape of what we're up against and helped us craft our strategy,” Harmonson says.

A Big Win

Right around the time the factoring industry began to build the AFA, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act became law. This legislation would lead to one of the great battles of the AFA’s still early life, with Hamilton leading the charge.

The main thorn to the factoring industry in the Dodd-Frank Act was Section 1071, which requires the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to enforce regulations mandating lenders report demographic information about small business credit applicants, the type of small business credit they extend and key elements of the price of the credit they offer. For years, factors argued that they did not fall under the jurisdiction of this statue because they are not actually lenders but, rather, purchasers of assets.

In the more than 10 years after the Dodd-Frank Act passed, Hamilton, with the aid of members of the AFA, met with federal legislators and the CFPB to argue this point, noting that if factors complied, they would skew the data, according to Harmonson.

“He was instrumental on that and understanding how the CFPB actually makes decisions,” Harmonson says. “He really helped formulate that strategy and got us in front of the right people.”

All those meetings over the years finally bore fruit this past fall, as the CFPB announced in September that its proposed regulation implementing Section 1071 of the Dodd-Frank Act would not be imposed on the factoring industry, pending final regulation.

Always Advocating

Hamilton did more than advocate for the factoring industry on the Section 1071 front. Before his passing, he was also working hard on helping the industry deal with looming state-level regulations in states like California and New York, and that doesn’t even count the multiple other initiatives he dedicated himself to for the industry since 2009.

“He basically helped us take an industry that had no representation, no experience with lobbying, no experience with crafting legislation or nuanced regulatory issues and showed us how to do that,” Harmonson says. “And without him, we wouldn't have had a way in, so we feel really lucky to have worked with him as long as we did.”

Both Frederic and Harmonson say that Hamilton was an effective communicator with exceptional organizational skills, which he used both in his work with the AFA and his day job as a member in the banking and financial services practice of law firm Jones Walker.

“He was effective because he didn't just understand the nuances of the law and policy, he understood the human angle, and building relationships was obviously something that he did extremely well over his lifetime,” Harmonson says. “Every area that he was involved with, people wanted to ask his opinion, people wanted to get his guidance. Palmer was the star of the show.”

Harmonson also says Hamilton was a “working machine” who walked just about anywhere he could, whether it be to a lunch or meeting and regardless of what time it was. In one particular instance, Harmonson remembers spending a day in Washington with Hamilton in which they met with a congressperson at 9 a.m. and then walked to meetings and offices across the city throughout the day before going to dinner and finally departing at around 11 p.m.

Frederic also believes Hamilton played his political leanings close to the chest, forging relationships with both Democrats and Republicans.

“That's what you have to do to be a lobbyist,” Frederic says. “You have to be able to play both sides.”

Outside Factoring

Hamilton dedicated so much time and effort to the factoring industry despite having more than a few responsibilities outside of it. He had a full legal career with Jones Walker representing clients in Congress and advising elected and appointed officials. He also held senior posts within several administrations and actively represented clients in Congress for four decades, with a particular focus on finance and government affairs.

Outside of the political realm, Hamilton was married to his wife, Amy Ross St. John Hamilton, and a father to his daughter, Margaret Langdon Hamilton. He was also a member of the Society of the Cincinnati of the State of South Carolina, a state chapter of the Society of the Cincinnati, a nonprofit organization whose members are descendants of people who fought in the American Revolution. Hamilton was also made a Knight of the Order of St. John in 2014 by Queen Elizabeth II, won awards for his historical preservation work in his hometown of Mobile, AL, was active in the Episcopal church and was a passionate reader and writer, even publishing a book in 2020 titled “The Threads of Liberty, The Pursuit of The Society of the Cincinnati of the State of South Carolina.”

“I went to his funeral and there were at least 500 people there and standing room only. And it was quite amazing and it was inspirational,” Harmonson says. “So a life well lived. He was just a man who, whenever he spoke, you wanted to listen to what he was about to say. He was both powerful and gentle at this same time with his communication, which is a pretty rare skill in my book.”

“He's going to be remembered and not just for his contributions to the factoring industry. That's one small contribution,” Frederic says. “He's going to be remembered as a friend, as a colleague, as a mentor, as a coach, as a church leader, as a trusted and dear friend to everybody that he knew.”