East West Bank: SBA Lending Record

East West Bank in the SBA file

SBA lists 1,393 loans approved in FY2017 to FY2026 under East West Bank, for gross dollars of $1.01 billion. Every loan is 7(a), and 0 are 504. These are loans the bank holds or last held according to SBA; the page says nothing of who first made them or how the bank lends.

Classes: restaurants lead

853 loans have no asset class assigned. Full-service restaurant is by far the largest classed group at 169 loans, followed by limited-service restaurant at 78. Gas station and truck stop has 46, liquor store 35, hotel and motel 33 and automotive mechanical repair (car and truck) 21. A restaurant study turns on seat turnover, rent and kitchen build cost, while a fuel or liquor project needs tests of traffic, margin and licensing timeline.

A California concentration

California has 973 of the loans, far ahead of Texas at 90, Washington at 74, Georgia at 71 and New York at 60. Nevada has 25 and New Jersey 14. The file is overwhelmingly in one state, so for a Californian project it is a relevant record, and for a borrower in other states it is thin.

Cancellation and charge-off floors

The cancelled share of approvals runs to 7.7% over FY2017 to FY2024, on a floor basis. No ceiling is printed, because Loan Analytics holds it back by its own rule. On the charge-off side, 3.8% of the 638 loans in the FY2017 to FY2021 cohort sit as charge-offs to date on a floor basis. Likewise no five-year measure is printed for this lender, and a missing figure should never be read as zero. A cohort of 638 means the 3.8% is best treated as a floor that may rise, and these rates pool every trade in the book, so a study for one property type has to test its own project risk.

Use beside a feasibility study

A lender's SBA tallies are context. What persuades a credit reader is a study that tests demand at the site, cost against a budget, debt service coverage when revenue disappoints and the supporting appraisal. Prepare that first, then choose a lender; the counts here help with the second step and cannot substitute for the first.