First Bank & Trust
At a Glance
A two-state desk that says acquire a business in its first sentence and puts four named bankers on the phone; it claims no status and prints no figure of its own.
- Pricing
- Custom Pricing, Loan products. No size, rate or fee of its own is published. The SBA page restates the program's 7(a) ceiling, Express loans and lines to the program's ceiling, and 504 project financing to $12.5 million with higher limits for manufacturing and up to ninety percent of project cost. It says SBA fees vary by type and term and may be financed.
- Best For
- A buyer in South Dakota or Minnesota who wants an SBA desk that names acquiring a business before anything else and answers on a banker's direct line.
- Track Record
- A Brookings, South Dakota bank founded in 1880 with twenty-two locations in two states, whose SBA page names acquiring a business in its first sentence and whose SBA team of four is named with phones.
- Type
- Bank (lends directly)
- Footprint
- Twenty-two locations in seventeen communities in South Dakota and Minnesota by its story page, from Brookings, South Dakota. It lends beyond the states it names, so one it does not name is worth asking about rather than ruling out.
- Approval Authority
- Claims no Preferred Lender status on its own pages, so plan on the agency reading the file after the bank does.
- No page states a Preferred Lender status; its SBA page names the 7(a), 504 and Express programs as headings, and its SBA team page's biographies name no status. A search snippet for a chamber listing calls it a preferred lender, which is not the bank's own page and does not lift the silence.
- 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 of its own on any page; the SBA page restates the program's ceilings for the 7(a), the Express line and the 504.
- Searcher Practice
- A general SBA lending desk, branch-driven.
- A connect-with-a-banker form and four SBA bankers with direct phones on its SBA team page; no online application for the SBA loan.
- No page names a search fund or a searcher; its SBA page names acquiring a business in its first sentence and puts the acquisition of a business first of five 7(a) uses and second of four Express uses.
- Published Terms
- No size, rate or fee of its own; the program's ceilings restated for the 7(a), the Express line and 504 project financing, with fees varying by type and term and financeable by its page.
- Roadmap Stages
- 5. Diligence & Close the Deal
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Names acquiring a business in its SBA page's first sentence and lists the acquisition of a business first among 7(a) uses
- Four SBA bankers with titles and a direct phone each, from the director of SBA lending to the operations officer
- Its Express product names business acquisition second of four uses, and its 504 section restates the program's terms
- An honest, small footprint: twenty-two locations in seventeen communities in two states
Cons
- States no program status: no page calls it a Preferred Lender
- No size, rate or fee of its own for any SBA loan; every figure is the program's
- No online application for the SBA loan; a form and the team's phones
- Names no search fund, searcher or acquisition entrepreneur
What Searchers Say
Read on its SBA loans page, its SBA team page, its business loans and commercial financing pages, its story, communities, locations and news pages. No searcher-forum discussion of the desk was found.
How to Approach
First Bank & Trust 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