SBA chief: Lending up, long road ahead - Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle):

http://www.nukleardawn.com/2008/03/autokratz-quintessentially-english/
Brown is a a sixth-generatiom family-owned business with 47 employees andaboutg $6 million in revenue last year. It worked with to secure a $2 million loan to buy its headquarter sin Columbus. President Rob Hunt said the compan sidestepped payingabout $65,000 in fees afteer the SBA instituted a temporary waiver for businesses that borrosw through its flagship 7(a) program. Ownintg the company’s headquarters outrighy brings long-term security, he said, whicu would have been hard to find withoutfederal “Banks aren’t doing conventional loans right Hunt said. “We simply wouldn’t have been able to do this.
” Initiativess such as the fee waiver, Millss said, are making a difference in a shorty amountof time: More lenderw are getting into the fray while SBA-backed loan volums is up more than 25 percent since the passagde of the stimulus bill. That translates to nearly $4 billion in guaranteed loans, $113 milliohn of which went to Ohio businesses. But it’z making small businesses aware of the programs onhand that’se the key challenge going forward, she said. “Alkl of these things take Mills said. “Small businesses are busy runnin gtheir business.
” In addition to the waiver and an increased guarantes of 90 percent on 7(a) loans, the SBA also has offereds a surety bond guarantee of $5 million, up from $2 for businesses competing for federakl contracts. On June 15, it’sx rolling out a program dubbed America’s Recovery Capital, whic h offers loans of up to $35,000o for businesses struggling to make debt Those loans are fullg guaranteed and have a deferredpaymen schedule. And next month, the SBA will begin offering guaranteed loans to finance inventory for automobile dealers throughgSeptember 2010.
Mills said she’s confident the agency has the righ t tools in place for smallpbusinesses – and the outlook on the economyu hasn’t hurt either. “The sense from small businesses and otherss is that the free fallhas stopped,” she said. “Bur we still have a ways to go.”