ORLANDO, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mercantile Capital Corporation (MCC) today reports it closed six commercial loans in March 2012 to finance projects valued at more than $31.5 million. MCC specializes in U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) 504 loans to small business owners who want to acquire, develop or refinance their own real estate.
“March’s loan volume helped push Mercantile Capital’s first quarter loan volume to the highest in the company’s nine-year history: 24 loans for $81.9 million in total project costs,” said Mercantile Chairman Geof Longstaff.
The firm’s largest single loan in March helped finance the $14.5 million acquisition of a Holiday Inn & Suites at Salt Lake City International Airport. Economists have long awaited the return of small business lending as an indicator of the recovery and recently, numbers have been encouraging.
“Our first quarter loan volume is a 68.4 percent increase compared with this time last year, and we expect a brisk pace for the remainder of this calendar year,” said MCC CEO Chris Hurn. The Federal Reserve reported business lending across the board increased 10 percent last year after two straight years of declines, and the Thomson Reuters/PayNet Small Business Lending Index is still posting more than 15 percent year-over-year gains.
A former member of the Inc. 500 list, Mercantile Capital Corporation focuses on providing SBA 504 loans for small business owners to acquire or enhance their own facilities. A wholly-owned subsidiary of Old Florida National Bank, the SBA named the company a Small Business Financial Services Champion twice in the past four years. For more information on Mercantile Capital and SBA 504 loans call (866) 6222-4504 (toll free) or visit http://www.504Experts.com or www.504Blog.com.