BANKING & FINANCE INTERVIEW
Better terms SBA lender is focused on helping business owners prosper
Bill Habermeyer President & CEO – Florida Business Development Corporation utilization of our loan program, second only to California. Texas is the second-most populated state in the country and program utilization is nowhere even close to the level of utilization in Florida. This is largely due to our ability to administer the programs we offer with greater cost and certainty.
What role does the Florida Business Development Corporation play in the Tampa market? We are a Small Business Administration (SBA) lender. We administer the SBA 504 loan program. It’s primarily used for the acquisition of commercial real estate, as long as that acquisition is going to house the employees of that business. The main focus is helping business owners obtain better terms than those available from conventional credit markets. Our focus in Tampa, is to ensure the small business and lending communities are utilizing these programs. As it is a national program, you can identify real, deep disparity between certain parts of the country that use the SBA programs and certain others that do not. A lot of times, it comes down to who is administering it in those local areas. For instance, the state of Florida, and Tampa specifically, has widespread 114
| Invest: Tampa Bay 2021 | BANKING & FINANCE
How did your program handle the need among small businesses for outside funding? Ever since the pandemic kicked into high gear in March, our core business has increased in volume exponentially, outside of PPP loans. It is one of those instances where our COO and I were looking at adjusting our budgets for the next half of our fiscal year, worried no one was going to get loans or buy real estate. It turned out to be the exact opposite. We’ve seen a sizable increase in loan volume and demand for us despite the pandemic. Commercial real estate rates are at their lowest since at least 2003. Our government-guaranteed rates are lower than the cost of funds at a bank. Some businesses are going to gain from this and be able to pick up a piece of real estate at a better deal. What is your near-term focus? Our constant focus is on doing a better job providing access to capital with the 504 loan program. When we realized we could execute remotely, we started hiring people in analytical roles from across the country. We added three employees in California and one in Chicago. It enabled us to constitute an all-star team so that we can meet our drastically increased demand. We’ve invested heavily in remote technology so we don’t lose our sense of corporate culture, togetherness and working for one another. Our challenge will be finding ways to remain cohesive and implementing the right tools via technology will help us conquer that challenge.
