NEW YORK —July 24, 2006— Heidi J. Sorvino, a member of the Arent Fox Bankruptcy and Financial Restructuring Group, has been elected to the board of directors of Ameritrans Capital Corporation. She will serve on the board until the company's 2007 annual shareholders meeting, which is anticipated for the spring of 2007. Ameritrans is a specialty finance company that makes loans to and investments in small businesses.

Sorvino represents creditors, including banks, financial institutions and indenture trustees and debtors in restructurings, workouts and bankruptcies. She has served as counsel to creditors committees and has handled various bankruptcy situations including cash collateral orders, debtor-in-possession financing, automatic stay relief, plan negotiations, sales of assets, preference and fraudulent conveyance actions and trading in claims.

Sorvino’s election is a relative rarity in the business world. In its 2005 Catalyst Census of Women Board Directors of the Fortune 500, Catalyst found that women held only 14.7 percent of all Fortune 500 board seats, up from 13.6 percent in 2003 and 9.6 percent in 1995, when Catalyst began its census. Catalyst is a research and advisory services organization that works to expand opportunities for women at work.

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