Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

AEG Aids In Funding Business

There are ways for small businesses to get up and running if banks turn them down.

Deborah Slayton, vice president and loan officer with the Arkansas Enterprise Group, told the Clark County Industrial Council what the group does, at the regular monthly meeting of the CCIC Thursday, March 20.

She said many don't know the AEG even exists, but informed those present it is a non-profit affiliate of Southern Development Bancorporation. Its purpose is to help develop financing for small businesses.

Currently, the AEG operates in 46 counties in eastern and southwest Arkansas.

According to Slayton, the AEG helps find funding for companies exporting goods out of the region or replacing imported goods and services.

"We try to help companies get to a more bankable stage," she said.

In Clark County, the group's largest loan county, the AEG loans between $1 and $2 million annually helping businesses get up and running.

She said the AEG helped Hot Metal Technologies with an expansion and now the company employs more than 50 people.

Primarily, Slayton said, the AEG provides loans to companies when they can't get a bank loan or when banks can't meet their needs for working capital and equipment costs.

However, the AEG does not ordinarily make loans for retail business. It exists to help replace goods currently being imported into an area, or exporting manufactured items out of its coverage area.

"We target small businesses needing to grow," she said, "where banks won't look at them.

"We focus on manufacturing and value-added businesses. We don't do a lot of service companies and don't do retail because they don't create new money."