Mercantile Capital Corporation closing in on 100 loans and nearing $400 million volume for 2012

ORLANDO, Fla. — Mercantile Capital Corporation, which ranks as one of the nation’s leading providers of U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) 504 loans for small business owners who want to acquire or develop their own facilities, closed 78 loans during the first nine months of this year for $335.9 million in total project costs. Mercantile Capital Corporation could very well near the $400 million mark by the end of the year, said Chris Hurn, chief executive officer of Mercantile Capital. Of the three loans closed in September by Mercantile for $17.9 million, two were for hotel projects — one to refinance a hotel in Miami worth $7.9 million in total project costs, and another to construct a Holiday Inn Express Peekskill, N.Y., worth $8.7 million in total project costs. Two of the factors contributing to Mercantile’s success this year — the company’s loan volume is up 178 percent over the same period in 2011 — have been the SBA 504 loan refinance and First Mortgage Lien Pooling (FMLP) programs, which expired on September 27, according to Hurn. “The 504 refi and FMLP programs provided a real stimulus for small business owners wanting to purchase or construct their commercial real estate,” Hurn said. Hurn testified before small business committees of both the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this year to push for the extension of these helpful programs. Though the extensions weren’t granted, he hopes programs like these will be revisited following the upcoming elections. “The SBA 504 loan program is historically one of the nation’s best job creation tools, and America’s small business owners need programs like the 504 refi and FMLP to continue driving our economic recovery,” said Hurn.