GBank
At a Glance
The lender to call when the deal is bigger than main street; ask first whether Las Vegas decisioning reaches your market.
- Pricing
- Custom Pricing, Loan products, no fee to engage. The 7(a) reaches $5,000,000, up to ten years on a business-only deal and twenty-five on real estate, and the bank states the loan fully amortizes with no future balloon. Rates are described as competitive variable and are not published; confirm current terms directly.
- Best For
- A buyer whose deal is larger than the typical main-street purchase, especially a franchise resale, who wants a lender that already writes at that size
- In the Federal File
- 123 change-of-ownership loans in FY2025, 6th most in the country, averaging $2.9M each, at an average initial rate of 7.77%. Computed from the SBA's own loan-level data, not from anything the lender publishes.
- Track Record
- Fourth by acquisition dollars in FY2025, at the largest average loan near the top.
- Type
- Bank (lends directly)
- Footprint
- Two Nevada branches and lending in forty states by its own count, with the credit decision made in the Las Vegas area.
- Approval Authority
- Claims no Preferred Lender status on its own pages, so plan on the agency reading the file after the bank does.
- Nothing, on any page. Not preferred, not PLP, not delegated authority, and not the in-house wording that usually stands in for it. The bank's SBA hub sells speed without claiming the thing that produces it.
- 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.
- Searcher Practice
- A general SBA lending desk, branch-driven.
- Nothing either way. Its 7(a) page carries no remote, online-application, branch-visit or appointment language, so the flag here follows the footprint rather than a sentence, and the review page says only what was read.
- A 7(a) program page carrying the program's terms, its uses and its application path, and nothing beside it or linked from it is written for somebody buying their way into ownership.
- Published Terms
- 7(a) to $5M, fully amortizing with no balloon; acquisitions and franchises named.
- Roadmap Stages
- 3. Set Up & Fund the Search5. Diligence & Close the Deal
Where Its Loans Went
407 of its 429 change-of-ownership loans in the ranked industries went to one: Hotels (except Casino Hotels) and Motels.
- Hotels (except Casino Hotels) and Motels407 loans
- General Freight Trucking, Local9 loans
- General Freight Trucking, Long-Distance, Truckload8 loans
- Local Messengers and Local Delivery5 loans
Counts cover FY2020 through FY2025, from the SBA's loan-level file.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Wrote 121 change-of-ownership loans in FY2025 totaling about $348M, which is roughly $2.9M a loan, the largest average among the most active acquisition lenders and computed here from the SBA's own loan file
- Names both business acquisitions and franchise financing as eligible uses on its own 7(a) page, which most bank pages leave implicit
- States plainly that the loan fully amortizes with no future balloon, a term buyers otherwise have to ask about
- Sits third by acquisition dollars in FY2025 while lending from a single market, so the deal size rather than the branch count is what it competes on
Cons
- Publishes no rates or fees, so the only way to compare it is the call
- Markets itself on local decisions in the Las Vegas area, so a buyer elsewhere should ask early whether the relationship travels
- Does not state Preferred Lender status on its 7(a) page, which decides whether the file gets a second credit review at the SBA
- No Searchfunder or Reddit thread discusses the lender, so there is no practitioner account of how it handles a search-fund file
What Searchers Say
Loan counts, dollars, and the average deal size are computed here from the SBA 7(a) loan-level file. Product terms and eligible uses are from the bank's own 7(a) page. Preferred Lender status is unstated rather than denied, and the row says so.
How to Approach
GBank 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