53.7 F
San Diego
Thursday, Mar 28, 2024
-Advertisement-

SBA Loan Helps Construction Firm Build on Its Successes

Here’s a feel-good clean-tech story that lives up to the initial promise surrounding that industry.

San Marcos-based M Bar C Construction got a loan guaranteed by the U.S. Small Business Administration and the business is proving deserving both in new jobs it’s created, and those expected to come.

Last year the business founded by Jason Ianni in 2005 did $39 million in sales, up 200 percent from the prior year. In the past three years, the firm has grown by about 550 percent.

From its launch with only two people, the company has expanded to 75 full-time workers, including about 40 in San Diego County.

It’s been growing so fast in the past few years that the business had to find larger quarters, which it did with the help of an SBA 504 loan for about $1.9 million. The loan was used to purchase a 22,565-square-foot building that now houses the business, which builds canopies for carports that hold solar panels.

“The company was growing at such a dramatic rate we had to lease trailers for our staff,” said Ianni, who is 38. “Now we’ve got plenty of room.”

Ianni, who is being honored June 12 as the SBA’s Small Business Person of the Year for the San Diego district, didn’t get successful by chance. He started working right after graduating from high school for M Bar C Carports, a company owned by his father-in-law, Mike McReynolds, and helped to build that business.

After passing his contractor’s license exam, Ianni went out on his own to found his own company with McReynold’s blessing. In addition to the contracting business, he also formed two other related companies, ABS Equipment Leasing and iForce Building Products.

Today, M Bar C Construction is thriving with operations in Arizona, Hawaii and Oregon as well as California. This year the firm is on track to reach about $44 million in sales, as it continues to add new workers, Ianni said.

“The biggest reason for our growth is the solar rebate program by the federal government. Our biggest customers come from schools and the military,” he said.

A first generation Italian American, Ianni says he considers everyone who works for him as family, and treats his vendors and customers with the same respect that he has for his own family.

“What’s surprising is that we did all this without a designated sales staff until just recently. We’ve hired one person, and we might hire some more as we go.”

Other jobs the business created are project managers, estimators, and iron workers, he said.

• • •

AmericanWest buys branches: First PacTrust Bancorp Inc., parent of Pacific Trust Bank, which relocated to Irvine last year from Chula Vista, signed a definitive agreement to sell eight of its branches, including four in San Diego County, to AmericanWest Bank.

In addition to two branches in Chula Vista, the local branches going to AmericanWest are in Clairemont and El Cajon. Three branches are in Riverside County, and one is in Lakewood.

The transaction entails some $477 million in deposits and certain other assets including the sale of real estate at three of the branches, FPTB said. AmericanWest is paying a blended deposit premium of 2.3 percent applied to the balances on the closing.

Following the transaction, Spokane, Wa.-based AmericanWest will have 20 branches in Southern California including 10 in the county. The bank said it isn’t planning on any branch closures or relocations. FPTB will have two here.

• • •

SBA tally shows USB in lead: The latest lending report from the local SBA office through the end of April has U.S. Bank in the first position with 44 loans (both 7(a) and 504) for a gross dollar amount of $3.6 million.

However, Wells Fargo Bank, right behind with 39 SBA loans has a much higher gross dollar amount of $15.5 million, according to the report.

For the full fiscal year that began Oct. 1, 2012, the San Diego district did 342 SBA loans for $177.5 million, just about flat from the like seven months in the prior fiscal year when the district reported 349 total SBA loans for $177.8 million.

Banks net profits soar: The banking industry appears to be rock solid based on the first quarter report from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Through the end of March, the aggregate net income for the nation’s commercial banks increased by $5.5 billion to $40.3 billion from the 2012 first quarter.

Yet looks can be deceiving since only about half of 7,019 banks made more than they did for the first quarter of 2012, and 8 percent aren’t making any profits, the FDIC said.

Loan balances for the banks fell by $36.8 billion in the first quarter mostly due to big pay-downs on credit cards, as well as on home equity lines.

The list of problem banks (the FDIC doesn’t disclose names) declined again to 612 in the quarter, down from 651. At the height in the first quarter of 2011, the list was at 888 banks.

Through the end of March there have been 13 bank failures, compared with 24 failures for the like period of 2012.

• • •

Small Change: San Diego County Credit Union, the area’s largest with about $6.2 billion in assets, recently opened two new branches in Rancho Bernardo and Rancho Penasquitos to bring the total branch locations to 31 … California Coast Credit Union, with $1.6 billion in assets, said it’s using StillSecure software to do its legal compliance … Spain based Banco Santander International, with more than $1.7 trillion in assets, will relocate its downtown San Diego office from the Symphony Towers building to The US Grant hotel next year.

Send any news about local financial institutions to Mike Allen via email at mallen@sdbj.com. He can be reached at 858-277-6359.

-Advertisement-

Featured Articles

-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-

Related Articles

-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-