The government’s small business investment company program is losing some of its luster among managers as long licensing times and the recent government shutdown hamper LPs’ ability to reliably deploy capital to government-backed small-business funds.

GPs and LPs alike complained to Buyouts about long wait times for SBIC licenses – and that was before the government shutdown worsened the backlog at the U.S. Small Business Administration. Most say SBICs still offer attractive opportunities for investment, but many are concerned that the program is trending in the wrong direction.

Unexpected slowdowns

Attorney Mark Kromkowski, head of McGuireWoods’ SBIC Fund Formation and Transactional Group, said approvals that used to take six months now commonly take a year or more. While some delay should be expected whenever a presidential election leads to turnover of key SBA staffers, the transition between the Obama administration and the Trump administration had unexpected slowdowns, especially for a program that is popular with both Republicans and Democrats, Kromkowski said.

Read the full article, as published by Buyouts: https://bit.ly/2KnoBON