CIT Steps Up Its Expansion Into Middle Market Investment Banking With Key Senior Hires

NEW YORK, May 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- CIT Group Inc. , a leading provider of commercial and consumer finance solutions, today announced the appointments of Randal Stephenson as head of its Middle Market Mergers & Acquisitions Group and R. Thomas Hawes, James Cotter and Larkin Fowler as directors. Stephenson, Hawes, Cotter and Fowler will work with CIT's clients and customers to deliver transaction ideas and to execute merger, acquisition, divestiture and other advisory mandates; and especially to generate deal flow for CIT's private equity clients. Mr. Stephenson will report to Gregg Smith, senior managing director, Investment Banking Services.

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"We are extremely pleased to welcome these seasoned investment bankers to CIT," said Rick Wolfert, CIT's vice chairman of Commercial Finance. "CIT has served the middle market for nearly 100 years. Our M&A Advisory offering represents a natural next step in delivering a more complete suite of investment banking services to our core middle market financing customers and the private equity community. These bankers are well-known in the middle market and throughout the private equity sponsor community. Randal has led M&A advisory teams in this space with great success for more than a decade. He, along with Tom, Jim and Larkin, is a critical addition to CIT and will contribute greatly to our growth."

Stephenson joins CIT from Jefferies & Company where he served as managing director in its M&A Group and coordinated its exclusive sales & divestitures practice. He co-founded Jefferies' dedicated M&A Group upon joining the firm in 2002.

Prior to Jefferies, Stephenson was head of the New York office for Merrill Lynch's Middle Market M&A Group. Before Merrill, he was a member of the Wolfensohn & Co. M&A advisory boutique and its successor companies, Bankers Trust and Deutsche Bank. He received his BA in economics from the University of Michigan, an MBA from Harvard Business School and a JD from Boston College Law School. He is admitted to practice law in New York and Massachusetts.

Hawes joins CIT from Centre Capital Advisors. He was previously an executive director in the Mergers & Acquisitions Group of UBS Investment Bank. Prior to joining UBS he was a director in PaineWebber's Mergers & Acquisitions Group. He received his undergraduate degree from Baylor University and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Cotter joins CIT from Jefferies & Company where he was a senior vice president in the Mergers & Acquisitions Group. Previously he was a vice president with the Mergers & Acquisitions Group of JPMorgan Chase and CEO of a distressed publicly held automotive technology company that he restructured. He received his BA in philosophy from Tulane and an MBA from Cornell Business School.

Fowler joins CIT from Jefferies & Company where he was a senior vice president in the Mergers & Acquisitions Group. Previously he served in the M&A groups of JPMorgan Chase, Furman Selz LLC, and Paine Webber. He received his BS in business administration and accounting from Washington & Lee University and an MBA from the University of Michigan.

About CIT

CIT Group Inc. , a leading commercial and consumer finance company, provides clients with financing and leasing products and advisory services. Founded in 1908, CIT has more than $65 billion in assets under management and possesses the financial resources, industry expertise and product knowledge to serve the needs of clients across approximately 30 industries worldwide. CIT, a Fortune 500 company and a member of the S&P 500 Index, holds leading positions in vendor financing, factoring, equipment and transportation financing, Small Business Administration loans, and asset-based lending. With its global headquarters in New York City, CIT has approximately 6,600 employees in locations throughout North America, Europe, Latin America, and the Pacific Rim. For more information, visit http://www.cit.com/.

MEDIA RELATIONS: C. Curtis Ritter Director of External Communications & Media Relations (212) 771-9603 Curt.Ritter@CIT.com