United Midwest Savings Bank (SBA lending)
At a Glance
The vertical-desk structure is the draw: a buyer of a dental, veterinary, insurance, accounting, or funeral business gets a lender whose desk does that deal all day, which is worth more than a rate sheet nobody publishes anyway.
- Pricing
- Custom Pricing, Loan products; no fee to engage. The bank splits its program at $150,000, with a streamlined small-loan track below and the commercial SBA team above. The FOIA loan file shows 90 change-of-ownership 7(a) loans totaling $82.5M in FY2025, averaging near $916k at an 8.29% average initial rate, and 553 such loans across the file's six years.
- Best For
- Practice acquisitions in its named verticals, where the desk that answers has seen your kind of deal before, and smaller acquisitions that fit the streamlined under-$150k track
- In the Federal File
- 90 change-of-ownership loans in FY2025, 10th most in the country, averaging $916k each, at an average initial rate of 8.29%. Computed from the SBA's own loan-level data, not from anything the lender publishes.
- Track Record
- 553 change-of-ownership loans across our file's six years, written through its named industry desks.
- Type
- Bank (lends directly)
- Footprint
- Seven Ohio offices and no published service area, with named desks for medical, dental, veterinary, optometry, insurance, accounting, funeral, and hospitality deals. It publishes a region rather than a state list, so ask on the first call whether it lends where you are buying.
- Six pages carry no service area at all, and all seven offices it publishes are in Ohio. The one sentence containing the word nationwide calls its accounting team a nationwide leader in financing accounting and tax firm acquisitions, which is a claim about standing and not about where it lends.
- 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.
- Seven industry pages carry it, all of them on the bare domain rather than the www host, and two different wordings appear across them. The www SBA page this shelf holds does not say it at all.
- Deal Size
- $500k to $5M.
- States a floor: the smallest loan it publishes is $150k.
- A lane threshold rather than a refusal, and the bank's own navigation is split on it: one route for loans up to a hundred and fifty thousand and another, with a named team, for everything above. A buyer below the line is served by a different desk at the same bank.
- Searcher Practice
- A general SBA lending desk, branch-driven.
- THE FLAG CAME OFF ON THIS READING. It was true beside a footprint reading "Seven Ohio offices and no published service area", and the pages carry no remote or online-application language anywhere. The one nationwide word on the site is a superlative about a lending team being "a nationwide leader in financing Accounting and Tax Firm acquisitions", which is a claim about standing rather than about lending area. Reading it as a footprint would be the exact mistake this shelf has already made once.
- Published Terms
- A streamlined track under $150k, and the commercial SBA team above it.
- Roadmap Stages
- 3. Set Up & Fund the Search5. Diligence & Close the Deal
Where Its Loans Went
403 change-of-ownership loans across 9 of the industries the loan file ranks, the largest being Insurance Agencies and Brokerages at 105.
- Insurance Agencies and Brokerages105 loans
- Offices of Chiropractors78 loans
- Offices of Dentists71 loans
- Hotels (except Casino Hotels) and Motels64 loans
- Offices of Certified Public Accountants31 loans
- Funeral Homes and Funeral Services24 loans
- Other Accounting Services14 loans
- Tax Preparation Services10 loans
- Offices of Physicians (except Mental Health Specialists)6 loans
Counts cover FY2020 through FY2025, from the SBA's loan-level file.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Industry desks with named lenders for the practice trades a searcher actually shortlists: dental, veterinary, optometry, insurance, accounting, funeral
- Calls its accounting team a nationwide leader in financing accounting and tax firm acquisitions, on its own page
- One of the twenty most active acquisition lenders in the FOIA loan file, with 553 change-of-ownership loans across six years
- A streamlined program under $150k for the small deals bigger desks skip
Cons
- Publishes no rates and no state list; the nationwide claim is per-vertical rather than blanket
- Average acquisition loan near $916k in the FOIA loan file, so the very largest deals may be better shopped to the $5M-ceiling specialists
- Little searcher-community commentary to weigh against its own claims
What Searchers Say
The vertical claims are the bank's own; the FOIA loan file independently confirms the volume. Its loans lead six states' top-fives in the FOIA loan file, consistent with a nationwide book built through industry channels rather than branches.
How to Approach
United Midwest Savings Bank (SBA lending) 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