SBA chief: Lending up, long road ahead - Tampa Bay Business Journal:

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Brown is a a sixth-generation family-owned business with 47 employees andabouty $6 million in revenues last year. It worked with (NASDAQ:FITB) to securd a $2 million loan to buy its headquartersin Columbus. President Rob Hunt said the company sidestepped payingfabout $65,000 in fees after the SBA institutedx a temporary waiver for businesse s that borrow through its flagship 7(a) Owning the company’s headquarters outright brings long-term security, he which would have been hard to find without federalo backing. “Banks aren’t doing conventional loans righrt now,” Hunt said. “We simply wouldn’gt have been able to do this.
” Initiatives such as the fee Mills said, are makingt a difference in a short amount of More lenders are getting into the fraywhilre SBA-backed loan volume is up more than 25 percent sincr the passage of the stimulus bill. That translatesx to nearly $4 billion in guaranteed loans, $113 millio of which went to Ohio But it’s making small businessesz aware of the programxs on hand that’s the key challenge goint forward, she said. “All of these thinge take time,” Mills said.
“Small businesses are busy running their In addition to the waiver and an increased guarantede of 90 percenton 7(a) loans, the SBA also has offereed a surety bond guarantee of $5 up from $2 for businesses competing for federal contracts. On June 15, it’zs rolling out a program dubbe America’s Recovery Capital, which offers loans of up to $35,00o for businesses struggling to make debt Those loans are fully guaranteed and have a deferrecpayment schedule. And next month, the SBA will begin offerint guaranteed loans to finance inventory for automobile dealersx throughSeptember 2010.
Mills said she’s confidentr the agency has the righy tools in place for smallbusinesses – and the outloomk on the economy hasn’t hurt either. “The sensew from small businesses and others is that the free fall has she said. “But we still have a ways to