Silver Joins Babson Capital

Benjamin Silver has joined Babson Capital Management as a managing director in the firm's mezzanine and private equity group. He will work out of Babson's Los Angeles office, and previously was with GE Commercial Finance as a senior vice president of corporate lending.

PRESS RELEASE

Babson Capital Management LLC (“Babson Capital”), an investment management firm based in Boston and Springfield, Mass., announced today it has hired Benjamin Silver as a Managing Director in its Mezzanine/Private Equity Group (MPEG).

Mr. Silver will be based in Babson Capital's recently opened West Coast MPEG office in Los Angeles.

Mr. Silver joins Michael Ross, who joined Babson Capital last fall in its West Coast office. That office develops deal sources in the western U.S. and analyzes, structures and documents mezzanine and private equity investments generated by those sources.

Mr. Silver was previously with GE Commercial Finance, where he was Senior Vice President in the Corporate Lending Group office in Beverly Hills, Calif. and led a team of five originators focused on the Southwest U.S. He has spent the past decade in corporate-finance origination roles for GE and the Union Bank of California in the Los Angeles area.

“We are pleased to be able to add Ben as another strong representative in our growing West Coast operation,” said Michael Hermsen, a Managing Director in Babson Capital's MPEG. “He and Mike Ross make a great team to work with our portfolio companies and sponsors in the region.”

Mr. Silver joins a team of 14 that was formed in 1992 and now manages about $3.2 billion on behalf of clients. The MPEG's clients include Tower Square Capital Partners II, L.P., a $1 billion mezzanine and private equity fund closed by Babson Capital in February 2006, and Tower Square I, a $265 million fund closed in October 2003. It also invests on behalf of Babson Capital's parent, the Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. (MassMutual). MassMutual itself has been active in mezzanine and private equity investing since the 1960s. The MPEG team is led by a trio of managing directors: Mr. Hermsen, Michael Klofas and Richard Spencer.

Prior to his positions at GE and Union Bank, Mr. Silver first came to Los Angeles as an account executive with Foothill Capital Corp. in 1995, where he worked for three years. His previous role was with the former Fleet Bank in Boston, Mass., as a senior field auditor in the Asset-Based Lending Group, a position he began after graduating from University of Massachusetts at Lowell with a degree in accounting in June 1992.

About Babson Capital Management

Babson Capital Management LLC and its subsidiaries manage more than $108 billion as of March 31, 2008 for sophisticated investors in the U.S. and abroad. The firm offers a wide range of absolute return, co-investing, financing and customized mandates utilizing equity, fixed-income and derivative instruments. Based in Boston and Springfield, Mass., and Charlotte, N.C., the firm has six additional offices in the U.S. with subsidiaries in London and Tokyo. Babson Capital is a member of the MassMutual Financial Group and is on the web at http://www.BabsonCapital.com.