March 16, 2016

By Bob Coleman
Editor, C-Suite Wednesday

Episode 16 -- Charles Yorke, President, Paragon Small Business Capital Group

Welcome to Coleman Small Business Lending Podcast with your host, Bob Coleman. Today’s guest is Charles Yorke, President of the Paragon Small Business Capital Group. With 34 years experience in banking and 16 years in SBA lending Yorke is an industry veteran. Prior to working for Paragon, Yorke was Managing Director of the Small Business Capital Group at Cornerstone Bank. He held leadership positions with Haven Trust Bank and Regions Bank. He’s been active in the Dekalb County Chamber of Commerce for several years serving on the Board of Directors and as the 2009 chairman.

Bob Coleman: Charles Yorke, President, Small Business Capital Group, but Charles, I have to ask you what’s a Paragon, explain how this all works to me.

Charles Yorke: Well, Paragon is a 300 plus million dollar asset bank in Memphis, Tennessee and our group, the Small Business Capital Group consists of 15 SBA professionals and we were with a former – another institution and we joined Paragon about a year and a half ago and created the group. We were out of Atlanta and the bank is headquartered in Memphis.

Bob Coleman: What’s your footprint? What geographic area do you cover?

Charles Yorke: We cover Southeast, Midwest to Denver. We have lenders in Atlanta. Most of them are in Atlanta, but we have a lender in St. Louis and in Denver, so we cover from the Southeast over to the Denver market.

Bob Coleman: Very good. Just 7(a) or what other type of lending do you do?

Charles Yorke: Bob, we’ll do 7(a), 504 and a little bit of conventional lending as well.

Bob Coleman: USDA B&I program?

Charles Yorke: We’d like to. We haven’t been doing much of that so far, but it’s been – in the last year and a half it’s been a challenge, but we would certainly like to get in touch with some lenders that have some experience in that.

Bob Coleman: Yeah, as you know or may not know I’m a fan of that program. It’s a little bit different than SBA, but there’s times when it’s a nice fit for one of your borrowers, a little bit higher. I especially like the fact that you can take a hotel owner and he wants to expand to a second or third location and they’re on some Interstate out in the middle of nowhere and bam, you can do B&I very nicely for those people.

Charles Yorke: Very nice.

Bob Coleman: Tell me about your start. I’m always fascinated in how we always end up in our niches. How did you get into the SBA lending world?

Charles Yorke: Well, as a 30-year plus banker I had done a lot of C&I lending and in that arena you always dabble in the SBA group and I guess about 15 years ago I was with a bank here in Atlanta that was predominantly Indian owned and I did a lot of SBA lending through that and, therefore, I started that group and got it going and then started another group, so this is our third go over the last 15 years setting up a group.

Bob Coleman: Very good. And I guess the question is how specifically did you migrate from a C&I conventional lender to an SBA lender? What happened? What was the metamorphosis?

Charles Yorke: It’s the benefit to the consumer, it’s the credit elsewhere, I guess, if you know about the SBA. It gets you the ability to provide customers with longer terms, a lower down payment. It’s a great product. It’s a great benefit to the small business person in this country.

Bob Coleman: Credit box, what is your appetite, what do you like to do, what do you shy away from?

Charles Yorke: We are predominantly a – we get a lot of franchise lending. As I’ve looked at how to differentiate ourselves from other lenders one avenue that – and I guess it came out of that hotel lending background.