The FINANCIAL — For the second time in three years, Wells Fargo & Company is the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Large 7(a) Lender of the Year, according to Wells Fargo.
“Through the SBA’s partnerships with lenders such as Wells Fargo, business owners across the country obtain essential capital to build their businesses, add jobs and strengthen America’s economy,” said Mills.
“Being recognized by the U.S. SBA for the second time in three years is a tremendous honor for all of us at Wells Fargo," said David Rader, head of Wells Fargo’s SBA Lending Division. “At the same time, the greatest reward for our team is when our small business customers thrive and grow with help from SBA financing," he added.
One recent SBA 7(a) loan was extended by Wells Fargo to a Delaware-based custom conveyor belt manufacturer, O’Connor Belting International/DERCO USA in Newark, Del., that produces custom belts for food harvesting and processing applications. With an SBA 7(a) loan from Wells Fargo in 2012, Paul O’Connor – who had been the North-American division manager of Netherlands-based DERCO – was able to purchase the division and start O’Connor Belting. By the end of 2013, O’Connor expects to add a total of nine new jobs to keep up with increasing business demand, according to Wells Fargo.
"Being a business owner is more special and rewarding because I am able to share this experience with my two sons, who also own the company," said O'Connor. "Together, we worked with Wells Fargo to achieve our goal of running our own business, and we are thankful for the financial guidance we received to make our business a success," he added.
An SBA preferred lender in all 50 states, Wells Fargo was the first SBA lender to approve more than $1 billion in 7(a) loans in a single year in federal fiscal year 2011, and surpassed the $1 billion mark again in federal fiscal year 2012.
For the first eight months of the current federal fiscal year (Oct. 1, 2012 – May 31, 2013), Wells Fargo extended 2,211 SBA 7(a) loans nationwide totaling more than $862 million – a more than 17 percent increase in dollars from the same period a year ago, according to Wells Fargo.
For the federal fiscal year 2012, which ended Sept. 30, 2012, Wells Fargo extended $1.24 billion in SBA 7(a) financing to small business owners, and was the second largest SBA lender in units extending 3,176 SBA 7(a) loans. During the same period, the company was the No. 1 SBA 7(a) lender in dollars in 15 states – Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, Texas, Virginia, Washington and Wyoming – and the No.1 SBA 7(a) lender in number of loans (units) in 10 states: Alaska, California, Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, South Carolina and Wyoming.
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