Busey Bank
At a Glance
The desk that shows its work: closed buyouts and acquisitions on a page, and an officer with a phone number on his own page in each of four states; the sizes it does not publish, its deals page implies.
- Pricing
- Custom Pricing, Loan products; terms by term sheet. No loan size, rate or fee is published; its team page says terms up to twenty-five years and a down payment as low as ten percent, and its closed deals page shows a five million dollar partner buyout (per busey.com, September 2026).
- Best For
- A buyer in Illinois, Missouri, Colorado or Florida who wants an SBA officer with a direct line and a bank that has published the buyouts it closed
- Track Record
- A bank of eighty locations in ten states whose locations page files the corporate headquarters in Kansas, an SBA preferred lender with a dedicated 7(a) division and a rural lender of the year, naming its SBA officers by state.
- Type
- Bank (lends directly)
- Footprint
- Eighty locations in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, New Mexico and Texas by its locations page, with SBA officers in four of them. It lends beyond the states it names, so one it does not name is worth asking about rather than ruling out.
- Approval Authority
- Says it holds SBA Preferred Lender status, so it can approve the loan itself rather than sending the file to the agency for a second look.
- Deal Size
- $500k to $5M.
- Publishes no floor. Most of this shelf gives a ceiling that is really the agency's own cap, and no minimum at all.
- No amount at either end on any SBA page; its closed deals page shows a $5 million partner buyout as its largest deal and names no floor.
- Searcher Practice
- A general SBA lending desk, branch-driven.
- A contact form on a hosted page and an officer with a direct line in each of four states; no online application for the SBA loan.
- No page names a search fund or a searcher; its team page opens on acquiring a business, its practice pages list expansion through acquisition fourth and partner buyouts fifth, and its closed deals include a partner buyout.
- Practice Lending
- A practice lending program that names buying a practice.
- Its professional practice lending page serves dental, medical, law, accounting, insurance and investment advisory practices, names partner buyouts, expansion through acquisition and the purchase of books of business, and prints loan terms up to 25 years.
- Published Terms
- No size, rate or fee; terms up to twenty-five years and a down payment as low as ten percent by its team page.
- Roadmap Stages
- 5. Diligence & Close the Deal
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Its SBA team page opens on starting, expanding or acquiring a business, and its practice pages list expansion through acquisition and partner buyouts
- Publishes closed deals, a five million dollar partner buyout and a business acquisition among them
- Names its SBA sales manager and six SBA officers by state on its team page, and each officer's own page carries a direct line and email
- An SBA preferred lender with a dedicated 7(a) division, and a rural lender of the year by its own release
Cons
- Publishes no loan size, rate or fee
- Its own pages disagree on one officer's title, three across pages, and its locations page files the corporate headquarters in Kansas beside a contact address in Illinois
- No online application for the SBA loan, and its director of government guaranteed lending is named without a line
- Names no search fund, searcher or acquisition entrepreneur
What Searchers Say
Read on its SBA team page, its finance page, its closed deals page, its professional practice pages, its seven SBA officer pages, its commercial lending page, its locations and contact pages and three releases. No searcher-forum discussion of the desk was found.
How to Approach
Busey Bank is a bank, so this is how that kind of lender comes in, what it weighs, and how to arrive ready.
The Typical Arc
- A prequalification on you and the target, often from the first email.
- A full application and the bank's own underwrite of the deal.
- A term sheet, then closing on the SBA's timeline, commonly two to four months.
What It Weighs
- Whether the business's cash flow covers the debt with room to spare.
- Your experience relative to the business you are buying.
- Your equity injection and how clean the financials are.
How to Prepare
- Model the payment and coverage before you call. SBA Acquisition Calculator
- Underwrite the specific deal end to end. Underwrite a Deal
- Show where every dollar comes from and goes. Sources & Uses Builder