Rank 14 of 151 · 45 states
$494MCapital deployed
First Financial Bank
First Financial Bank was lender of record on 400 SBA-financed business acquisitions since FY2019, deploying $494M. Its median acquisition loan was $999,800 over 12 years at 7.05%, and it wrote deals in 45 states, with 16.0% of them in its largest single state.
This is a public record, not an endorsement. The figures come from the SBA's own loan-level file. LMMMA has no commercial relationship with this or any other lender, receives nothing for naming them, and does not recommend one bank over another. Nothing here is a credit reference or an assessment of the institution.
Volume and price
What businesses financed by First Financial Bank financed by an SBA 7(a) acquisition loan actually cost, and how many of them there were.
Source: SBA 7(a) FOIA loan-level extract, change-of-ownership approvals, FY2019 onward. Data as of 30 June 2026. n = 400 financed acquisitions.
| Size band | Acquisitions | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Under $250k | 35 | 8.8% |
| $250k to $500k | 62 | 15.5% |
| $500k to $1M | 103 | 25.8% |
| $1M to $2M | 129 | 32.3% |
| $2M to $3.5M | 51 | 12.8% |
| $3.5M to $5M | 19 | 4.8% |
| $5M and above | 1 | 0.3% |
| All | 400 | 100.0% |
The 7(a) programme caps a single loan at $5M, so the top band is a ceiling of the instrument, not of the market. Deals above it are financed conventionally and do not appear in this file at all.
How the paper was structured
Loan terms here are not spread smoothly. They spike at exactly ten years and again at exactly twenty-five, with very little in between. Those two points are the programme's maturity ceilings, and which one applies depends on what secures the loan, so a term running past ten years indicates real property was financed alongside the business.
| Term | What it indicates | Acquisitions | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 10 years | Shorter than the goodwill maximum | 38 | 9.5% |
| Exactly 10 years | The standard goodwill-only note | 157 | 39.3% |
| 10 to 20 years | Mixed collateral | 142 | 35.5% |
| 20 years and over | Real property financed with the business | 63 | 15.8% |
39.3% of loans here run exactly ten years and 15.8% run twenty years or more. n = 400 loans with a recorded term.
What happened next
Two outcomes are visible in the file: approvals that never funded, and funded loans that later charged off. Both are facts about deals, not forecasts.
The charge-off share is cumulative as of 30 June 2026 for loans approved in FY2019-FY2021. Those loans are five to seven years into terms that are usually ten years, so the figure is a floor and the lifetime rate will be higher. It is not comparable to a rate computed over a fully matured cohort, and the site does not publish one for later years for that reason.
By fiscal year
* FY2026 is incomplete. The extract closes 30 June 2026, nine months into a fiscal year that ends 30 September, and some FY2026 approvals have not yet disbursed. Do not read the last column as a decline.
Where and what it lends against
| State | Acquisitions | Share |
|---|---|---|
| TX Texas | 64 | 16.0% |
| OH Ohio | 45 | 11.3% |
| AR Arkansas | 36 | 9.0% |
| NC North Carolina | 28 | 7.0% |
| IN Indiana | 22 | 5.5% |
| LA Louisiana | 21 | 5.3% |
| MS Mississippi | 21 | 5.3% |
| CA California | 15 | 3.8% |
| Sector | Acquisitions | Share |
|---|---|---|
| 11 Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting | 122 | 30.5% |
| 44-45 Retail Trade | 119 | 29.8% |
| 81 Other Services (except Public Administration) | 51 | 12.8% |
| 54 Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services | 20 | 5.0% |
| 48-49 Transportation and Warehousing | 19 | 4.8% |
| 23 Construction | 14 | 3.5% |
| 56 Administrative and Support and Waste Management and Remediation Services | 10 | 2.5% |
| 72 Accommodation and Food Services | 9 | 2.3% |
In context
This lender wrote 0.98% of all SBA-financed business acquisitions in the country over the period. The ten largest acquisition lenders between them wrote 28.1%.
A buyer's choice of lender is one of the few things a seller can ask about directly during an LOI negotiation, and the answer is informative. See the financing contingency for what to ask and why.
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