Who buys retiring owners' businesses with SBA loans
The trades the NYT essay names are 2.8% of SBA 7(a) business-purchase loans. Restaurants, hotels, fuel and liquor are 24.5%. Here is who lends to each.
Contents 4 sections
Last week's guest essay in The New York Times (opens in a new tab) says PE is buying retiring owners' machine shops, plumbing firms and dental practices. The SBA's loan file shows the other buyers: people and small companies who borrowed to buy a business. From July 2025 to June 2026, those three trades were 2.8% of SBA 7(a) business-purchase loans. Restaurants and bars, hotels, gas stations, convenience and liquor stores were 24.5%.
The loans also show who lends. Live Oak Banking Company wrote 16.3% of the purchase loans in 16 service lines PE also buys, from HVAC shops to insurance agencies, and 2.3% of the purchase loans in restaurants, hotels, gas stations and liquor stores. Hanmi Bank leads food and lodging with 7.2%, and made none of its purchase loans in the record to the 16 service lines.
What the loan file records
The SBA 7(a) and 504 FOIA file (opens in a new tab) lists each loan the SBA guaranteed, with the borrower's name, industry code, city, lender and loan amount. The SBA updates it every quarter. "Changes of ownership (complete or partial)" is one of the uses the SBA lists for 7(a) money (opens in a new tab).
A change-of-ownership row shows who borrowed to buy all or part of a business. It doesn't show who sold, the seller's age or why they sold. The borrower has to be small under SBA size rules and must "Not be able to obtain the desired credit on reasonable terms from non-federal, non-state, and non-local government sources." That describes a person or a small company buying with a bank loan, so a sponsor-backed platform generally wouldn't qualify.
So the file and the essay describe different buyers. The essay covers the PE side of these sales. The file covers the buyers in the same trades who went to a bank instead.
How big the service lines are next to food and lodging
We grouped the loans by the NAICS industry on each one. The 16 lines are the three trades the essay names (machine shops, plumbing and HVAC, dental), five similar trades (electrical, roofing, landscaping, pest control, vet clinics) and eight more service lines with active PE roll-ups: general auto repair, auto body, child care, other specialty trade contractors, insurance agencies, CPA offices, home health and pet care.
Bar: share of the 7(a) change-of-ownership loans in the record. The line under each industry gives its median loan.
Food and lodging hold the top five places. Full-service restaurants alone are 6.5% of the loans in the record. Five of the 16 service lines make the top ten.
Taken together, the 16 service lines are 19.1% of the purchase loans in the record, with an $820K median loan. Restaurants and bars, hotels, gas stations, convenience and liquor stores are 24.5%, with an $860K median. The median for every 7(a) purchase loan in the record is $810K, so the two groups buy at much the same size.
The three businesses the essay names are a small part of this. Machine shops, plumbing and HVAC, and dental practices together are 2.8% of the loans. Dental alone is 0.8%.
The eight trades (the essay's three plus electrical, roofing, landscaping, pest control and vet clinics) run a bit larger. Five of the eight sit above the $810K overall median; the eight together have a $935K median. Machine shops have the largest, at $1.56M. For how these loan sizes sit against the SBA's new QoE rule for 7(a) and 504 loans, see today's post on that rule.
The 16 service lines and the lender that leads each
Here is the lead lender in each of the 16 lines.
| Industry on the loan | Share of all purchase loans | Median loan | Lead lender | Top lender's share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| General auto repair | 2.66% | $640K | Live Oak | 18.1% |
| Child care | 2.04% | $970K | Live Oak | 13.4% |
| Other specialty trade contractors | 1.85% | $870K | Huntington | 25.0% |
| Landscaping | 1.61% | $790K | Huntington | 10.6% |
| Plumbing, heating and AC | 1.56% | $1.08M | Live Oak | 12.1% |
| Insurance agencies | 1.49% | $660K | Live Oak | 32.2% |
| CPA offices | 1.46% | $570K | Live Oak | 23.5% |
| Home health care | 1.41% | $930K | Live Oak | 40.2% |
| Pet care | 1.08% | $790K | First Financial Bank | 22.2% |
| Auto body and paint | 0.88% | $760K | Live Oak | 11.8% |
| Dentists' offices | 0.81% | $800K | Live Oak | 31.9% |
| Electrical contractors | 0.65% | $1.11M | No single lead | 7.9% |
| Roofing contractors | 0.60% | $1.18M | No single lead | 11.4% |
| Machine shops † | 0.39% | $1.56M | No single lead | 8.7% |
| Pest control † | 0.36% | $790K | No single lead | 19.0% |
| Veterinary services † | 0.22% | $820K | Live Oak | 46.2% |
Share of all purchase loans: the line's share of every 7(a) change-of-ownership loan in the record. Top lender's share: the share of the line's loans written by its most active lender. Live Oak is Live Oak Banking Company; Huntington is The Huntington National Bank. No single lead: two or more lenders share the top count, or the top lender has fewer than five loans in the line. † The smallest lines in the table by loans in the record; read the share loosely.
Live Oak leads more of the lines than any other lender. Its highest shares are in home health (40.2%), insurance agencies (32.2%) and dental (31.9%). The Huntington National Bank leads two lines, including a quarter of the loans to other specialty trade contractors.
Electrical, roofing and machine shops look different. No lender has more than 11.4% of any of them, so buyers there spread across many banks.
The lender books split the same way. Over a third (36.2%) of Live Oak's own purchase loans in the record went to the 16 service lines, and 6.6% to food, lodging, fuel and liquor. Huntington's book is more even, at 20.2% and 14.8%. Hanmi Bank and US Metro Bank sit at the other end, with 83.6% and 87.2% of their purchase loans in food, lodging, fuel and liquor.
Three named loans show the pattern. The Kirkland plumbing loan sits at the line's median.
| Borrower | Town | Lender | Loan | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mr. Reliable Heating & Air LLC | Katy, TX | Live Oak Banking Company | $1.06M | April 2026 |
| Elk County Machining, LLC | Saint Marys, PA | Beacon Bank and Trust | $1.56M | June 2026 |
| Washington Leak Detection LLC | Kirkland, WA | The Bancorp Bank | $1.08M | July 2025 |
Using the lender column
If you run BD for a platform in HVAC, plumbing or roofing, each row in the file is a closed purchase with a town, a date, a lender and a loan amount. Filter to your trade and your states and you see where individual buyers are closing, at what size, and with which banks. In home health, dental or insurance, one lender writes close to a third or more of those loans, so its activity is a fair read on the whole line.
For the sponsors in the same trades, the register links firms to the companies they hold, for example JPB Partners in HVAC and plumbing, Caymus Equity Partners in dental and Linden Capital Partners in vet clinics and dental.
If you're a searcher, start with the lender that already leads your line in the table above. In electrical, roofing, machine shops or pest control, where the table shows no single lead, plan to talk to several.
To see the loans, open the deal finder. Each SBA change-of-ownership row shows the industry on the loan, the lender, the town and the loan amount.