Small-Business Credit Markets, Assessed by a Loan Broker

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Ami Kassar of MultiFunding and Lisa Iliopoulos, who is expanding her day care center with the help of a loan arranged by MultiFunding.

By ROBB MANDELBAUM

Published: February 9, 2011

Up until summer 2009, Ami Kassar was a nine-to-fiver, working for Advanta, one of the largest providers of credit cards to small business. But then the company went bust, another victim of the credit crisis, and the newly unemployed Mr. Kassar decided to strike out on his own. 

 He formed MultiFunding, a broker that helps arrange loans for small businesses. It was hardly an auspicious time to open any business, but Mr. Kassar’s challenge was particularly daunting: the freeze in small commercial loans was only beginning to thaw. Plus, business loan brokering has been a fairly obscure and even somewhat shadowy field — but one that Mr. Kassar says he believes serves a growing need. 

Running both a start-up and a loan broker, Mr. Kassar has had an unusual perspective on the small-business credit crisis. Based near Philadelphia, MultiFunding, which observed its first anniversary last week, now employs four people full time and has completed 12 transactions. It is presently helping 120 clients in 23 states secure financing. 

 Mr. Kassar, who works with companies that seek at least $250,000, said that he was able to help from one-third to one-half of his prospective clients. When MultiFunding procures financing, it takes as a fee either a percentage of the financed loan — from 1 to 2.5 percent — or, in the case of a refinancing, two months’ worth of saving over the original debt service. 

Mr. Kassar recently spoke about his business and the market for small-business lending. This is a condensed version of that conversation.

Q. What accounts for MultiFunding’s growth — marketing, or a worsening economic environment for businesses? 
 
A. I think there’s a yearning and crying out for transparency and knowledge and understanding. Most small-business owners are more tradesmen than they are businessmen, and they don’t really understand the finances.

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