Mezzanine capital, in finance, refers to a subordinated debt or preferred equity instrument that represents a claim on a company's assets which is senior only to that of the common shares. Mezzanine financings can be structured either as debt (typically an unsecured and subordinated note) or preferred stock.

Mezzanine capital is often a more expensive financing source for a company than secured debt or senior debt. The higher cost of capital associated with mezzanine financings is the result of it being an unsecured, subordinated (or junior) obligation in a company's capital structure (i.e., in the event of default, the mezzanine financing is only repaid after all senior obligations have been satisfied). Additionally, mezzanine financings, which are usually private placements, are often used by smaller companies and may involve greater overall leverage levels than issuers in the high-yield market; as such, they involve additional risk. In compensation for the increased risk, mezzanine debt holders require a higher return for their investment than secured or more senior lenders.

Dr. Peter Linneman (born March 24, 1951) is the principal of Linneman Associates, the CEO and founder of American Land Fund and KL Realty, and the chief economist of NAI Global. He previously served as the Albert Sussman Professor of Real Estate, Finance, and Public Policy at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, retiring in December 2010. Linneman served as the founding chairman of Wharton's Real Estate Department, and was the Director of Wharton's Samuel Zell and Robert Lurie Real Estate Center for 13 years. He is also the founding co-editor of The Wharton Real Estate Review. Linneman has also been named one of the 100 Most Powerful People in New York Real Estate according to The New York Observer and one of the 25 Most Influential People in Commercial Real Estate by Realtor Magazine.

Linneman grew up in Lima, Ohio and attended Lima Central Catholic High School. He received his bachelor's degree in economics from Ashland University in 1973 and went on to obtain his masters (1976) and Ph.D. (1977) in Economics at the University of Chicago, where he began his teaching career. In his early career, Linneman began doing litigation support work in the field of anti-trust economics, and by the mid 1980s had begun focusing on commercial real estate. He has served on several public company boards, including serving on the Executive Committee of Equity Office Properties, and was chairman of Rockefeller Center Properties, successfully negotiating the foreclosure of its previous owners and its subsequent sale in the mid 1990s. He subsequently founded the Linneman Letter in 2001, a widely-subscribed quarterly commercial real estate publication. He has been married to Kathy Linneman since 1973, with no children.

David Wilmot (January 20, 1814 – March 16, 1868) was a U.S. political figure. He was a sponsor and eponym of the Wilmot Proviso which aimed to ban slavery in land gained from Mexico in the Mexican-American War of 1846–1848. Wilmot was a Democrat, a Free Soiler, and a Republican during his political career. His opposition to slavery did not include the abolitionist position of ending slavery in the entire country, and his views on race, by today’s standards, could be classified as racist.

David Wilmot was born in Bethany, Pennsylvania to Randall (1792–1896) and Mary Grant Wilmot (1792–1820). His father was a well to do merchant, and David’s early life was a comfortable one. He was educated at the local Beech Woods Academy and later at the Cayuga Lake Academy in Aurora, New York. Moving to Wilkes-Barre in 1832, he read law under George W. Woodward and was admitted to the bar in Bradford County, Pennsylvania in August 1834. In 1836 he married Anna Morgan and the couple had three children, none of whom survived childhood.