The Business sCOOP – SEED Corporation and Resources for Businesses III
Allyson Brainson: Welcome to the Business Scoop I’m Allyson Brainson and I’m here with Angie Laperriere from SEED. Welcome, Angie!
Angie Laperriere: Thank you so much for having me!
Allyson Brainson: Tell us about your small loan programs? Are they term loans or lines of credit?
Angie Laperriere: So we actually have a small loan program that goes up to $ 250,000 and then micro loan program under the SBA that goes up to $ 50,000. All of our loans are term loans. We unfortunately don’t provide lines of credit but we can do working capital loans for the term loans. It’s a really great program, it gives us a lot of flexibility. So ultimately if somebody’s coming to us to look for financing will determine based on their need, their location, their use of funds, which program we would use but I’ll talk a little bit about the interest rate in the term that’s going to be pretty much the same across the board for all of our small loans. So with the small loan program that goes up to 250,000 the use of funds is really flexible. We do a lot of real estate loans, where we always work with a bank on these loans or business acquisition can be used for equipment working capital furniture and fixtures inventory purchases or even refinancing high interest credit card or business debt. The only thing we really can’t do is provide financing to non-profit businesses it has to be for-profit and we can’t use the money to pay salary of a business owner or to pay off a bank loan or line of credit. Again going back to the fact that we’re really here not to compete with the banks so the use of funds is very flexible we do a lot of real estate loans where maybe it’s a smaller project a condo given the area we are located in we see a lot of projects where the bank still is coming in a first position to provide financing for the real estate with seed coming into a second and allowing the business owner to put as little as 10 percent down which is really a great program the SBA micro loan program that goes up to 50,000 these are more geared towards our startup businesses but can also be for existing businesses as well so again flexible use of funds same use of funds as I had mentioned for the small loan program up to 250 except for real estate so we can’t use our micro alum program for real estate purchases but you know it’s a really great program typically if we’re working on our own if it’s a straight referral from the bank and we they can’t provide the financing our interest rate will be six percent and it will be fixed for a six to a seven year term and there’s no prepayment penalty so you can pay it off early without any fees or charges which is great and then if we do work with a bank partnership whether it be for real estate or for a business acquisition or just a regular gap for working capital or equipment the interest rate for seeds portion would drop to five percent and then any gap loans with the bank the bank would set their own rate and term as well so it’s a really great program um the fact that there’s no prepayment penalty it really allows us to provide that financing to the small businesses at reasonable terms and everything is done in-house at seed and service within SEED so we just have a small group over there that we really do everything from soup to nuts so it’s a great program to take advantage of it’s important to note that when you are looking for financing your first stop should always be to your local bank that you have an existing relationship with and if that financing cannot be obtained that’s when we come over to seed and it’s important for you to understand that for seed corporation because of how we partnership with the local banks that we actually require a bank decline for any request over twenty thousand so again that’s really why where we come into play and why it’s important to visit your local bank first.
Allyson Brainson: Thank you for joining us today, Angie and thank you for watching the Business Scoop, brought to you by The Cooperative Bank of Cape Cod.