SBA encourages banks to give out more loans

The U.S. Small Business Administration wants to increase the amount of loans being made in Southeast Missouri, says Sam Jones, regional administrator for the agency.

Jones, based in Kansas City, Mo., visited the Bank of Missouri in Cape Girardeau on Wednesday to increase awareness of SBA programs.

"We're expanding our footprints with lending partners at the bank," said Jones, speaking to about 20 bank employees. "Banks haven't had the attention they deserve."

Lending in the eastern half of Missouri is fairly flat except for Hannibal and Columbia, SBA officials said. "Southeast Missouri is basically an untapped market," said Brenda Klages, senior area manager for the SBA. "We haven't gotten a lot of guaranteed loans."

In 2006, US Bank was the biggest SBA lender in the 22-county area Klages serves, but this year others like Montgomery Bank and 1st Community Bank are becoming more active.

Klages, who can be contacted at the Southeast Innovation Center at 920 Broadway in Cape Girardeau, wants to work with all the banks in the area until lenders start making more money available for SBA loans.

The SBA was created to aid, counsel and protect the interests of small businesses and help them recover from natural disasters. It primarily does this by guaranteeing loans through banks to nurture entrepreneurship.

Although those loans for Southeast Missouri are processed at the regional office in St. Louis, the Cape Girardeau office provides an outlet to liquidate and market the loans and facilitate the auctioning of local property.

"The statistics will give you the number that about half the small businesses aren't there five years later, and the implication is that they failed," said Jones. But, he said, the business may have just been bought out or relocated. "They may have prospered marvelously. That is the untold story."

That happens often with smaller businesses, according to Klages. "They're successful until someone bigger comes in and buys you out."

tkrakowiak@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137