GSA Daily Staff Report
Published Feb. 2, 2010

Carolina First bank has appointed Paul Pickhardt as vice president, SBA business development.

Pickhardt, pictured, joined Carolina First in October 2009 and is responsible for developing Small Business Administration loans in the Upstate market. Prior to joining Carolina First, he was employed with Small Business Loan Source LLC as vice president, SBA business development.

Carolina First is a subsidiary of The South Financial Group and offers a full line of financial services and products including the 7(a) and 504 SBA loans for qualified owner occupied small businesses.

Carolina First is dramatically increasing the amount of money it lends to small businesses after being designated a preferred lender by the U.S. Small Business Administration. The bank, with locations across South Carolina, has added staff to service the loans under the federal loan-guarantee program.

Richard Bradshaw, executive vice president and director of SBA lending, said he aims to loan more money to small businesses in the second quarter of 2010 than the bank has approved in its entire history. And while he would not say exactly how much new capital the bank has designed for the SBA-guaranteed loans, he said the bank’s total for the program for the life of the bank is about $10 million.

The South Financial Group, Carolina First’s parent company, has added 17 SBA-experienced people in South Carolina, North Carolina and Florida to service the program, Bradshaw said. In South Carolina, some of those people will be located in the Lowcountry, the Midlands and the Upstate. Bradshaw said the most inquiries so far have come from Charleston and Greenville, but the SBA-experience lender for the Midlands just started on the job.

Businesses have complained over the past year that recession-battered banks are not approving loans needed by small businesses to grow and prosper. Bradshaw said that is not the case at Carolina First and the bank is eager to approve new loans. The target range for such loans is $200,000 to $2 million, he said.