Small business owners across the city say they aren’t getting the credit they deserve.
Despite posting profits and strong balance sheets, the owners said they can’t get their hands on financing to grow their operations.
“It was mind-boggling,” said John Beyer, the president of Men on the Move, a 40-employee Floral Park, NY-based moving company, after getting turned down by Chase for a $250,000 loan he hoped would fuel expansion. Beyer said he has a credit score of 800 and $5 million in revenue.
“Banks are dotting their ‘i’s and crossing their ‘t’s like never before and they’re making it difficult for small business,” he said.
Data from the Federal Reserve shows that Beyer may be on to something.
Since July 1, while stock markets have jumped 28 percent and profits have returned, commercial and industrial loans made by US banks have fallen in 33 of the 35 weeks — for a total decline of 12 percent. The lack of credit is hurting local job growth, business owners said.
Fran Biderman-Gross, CEO of Advantages, a Queens-based branding, mass communications and marketing company, got turned down from two banks for a $60,000 loan she was going to use to move to a “hipper” location in Manhattan and to hire two more employees.
She said she has good credit and a solid business but will reluctantly seek a private investor as a last resort if she is turned down in her loan application from her third bank.
Gary Whitehill, who founded and runs New York Entrepreneur Week — an event that attracts people from small business with annual revenues of up to $5 million, and is anticipating attendance of 3,000 when it runs in April event, got turned down for a $50,000 loan.
Whitehill then took a $25,000 loan from his parents and tapped his own savings.