We built the company we couldn't find as buyers.
Two guys, a box truck and a line of credit that everybody said was too aggressive. Ten years later Fellow USA is one of the largest independent closeout buyers in the country — and the only one that funds its own customers.
Distressed inventory is a timing problem, not a value problem.
A closing store's product didn't get worse. The clock just ran out. A landlord wants the space, a lender wants the collateral, a family wants to be finished. Everything in that building still has real, provable retail value — it simply needs to be gone by the fifteenth.
Our whole business sits in that gap. We move faster than the deadline, pay in certainty rather than in promises, and then hand the goods to operators who know how to retail them. The seller gets out clean. The buyer gets margin nobody on the open market can touch.
The financing came later, and it came from complaint. Our best buyers kept passing on our best lots — not because the deal was bad but because a $300,000 truckload needed $300,000 that week. So we started underwriting them ourselves. It turned out to be the most important thing we've ever built.
- Certainty beats price. A seller will take less from someone who actually closes.
- Grade it honestly. One inflated manifest costs more than the lot was ever worth.
- Buy the whole building. Cherry-picking makes you a nuisance, not a partner.
- Fund the buyer. Our floor is only as good as the people who can afford to clear it.
- Answer the phone. Every account has a name and a direct line, not a ticket queue.
- Pay on the day you said. Reputation in this trade is built entirely on wires clearing.
Ten years, one direction
Two people and a box truck
Founded to buy the remaining stock of a closing appliance store in central New Jersey. The first deal was $41,000 and took a personal guarantee from both founders.
First warehouse
Ninety thousand square feet outside Allentown. Buying shifts from opportunistic to programmatic, with a standing crew for teardown and load-out.
Automotive desk opens
A single dealership wind-down turns into a dedicated vehicle group handling franchise closeouts, off-lease returns and repossession pools.
The chain store year
Retail contraction accelerates. Fellow closes 240 store-level buyouts in fourteen months and builds the manifest and grading system still in use today.
Fellow Capital launches
Purchase financing goes live after two years of quietly carrying paper for repeat buyers. First-year originations pass $60 million.
Four regional hubs
Northeast, Southeast, Midwest and Southwest facilities open, cutting average freight distance nearly in half.
Eight sector desks, 48 states
Everything from CNC machinery to sneakers, with the same promise on both sides: we close, and we fund.
The people who sign the wires
A. Feldman
Co-founder & Chief Executive
Twenty years in retail liquidation before Fellow. Still personally walks any building over $2M.
M. Ruiz
Co-founder & Head of Buying
Runs all eight sector desks. Built the grading standard that buyers now quote back to us.
S. Lindqvist
President, Fellow Capital
Former asset-based lender. Owns underwriting, portfolio risk and every credit decision over $500K.
T. Nakamura
Chief Operating Officer
Warehousing, freight and load-out crews. Turned a three-week clear into a nine-day standard.
Come see the floor
Whether you're winding a business down or building one up, the conversation starts the same way.