Small businesses get boost from major financiers

6/14/2011

Several major capital financing firms are throwing their backs in support of small businesses, Bloomberg reports. The organizations involved are forming business development corporations in an effort to spur economic recovery.

Twelve major investment firms - ranging from Oaktree Capital Management to Churchill Financial Holdings - are putting together a $1.38 billion fund to support small business lending. The goal is to buoy small businesses, which account for the majority of new job creation.

"Capital needs to start getting down to the middle market and then below to the innovators," Leon Wagner, who co-founded GoldenTree Asset Management, a New York hedge fund focused on debt markets, told the source. "That's what America needs to get deployed into the economy for significant growth to occur."

Small business lending remains one of the top barriers to success for entrepreneurs, with Gallup economist Dennis Jacobe recently claiming that as many as 30 percent of small company heads have challenge acquiring the funding they need.