LENDER OVERVIEW

First Business Bank is a commercially focused bank built specifically for mid-sized private companies — no retail branches, no consumer lending, no distraction from its core mission of providing working capital, specialty finance, and asset-based credit to business borrowers across the country. First Business Bank operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of First Business Financial Services, Inc. (Nasdaq: FBIZ), a publicly traded holding company. The bank was founded in 1990 and is headquartered in Madison, Wisconsin. Its specialty finance arm — covering accounts receivable financing, factoring, and inventory floorplan lending — has developed into a nationally active origination engine that punches well above its regional-bank profile. First Business Bank’s 2025 deal activity shows a lender with genuine product breadth: factoring facilities for turnaround manufacturers, floorplan lines for automotive dealers, and multi-tranche ABL structures for acquisition financing — all closed as sole lender with no syndicate required.

• Headquarters: Madison, Wisconsin
• Founded: 1990
• Ownership: Wholly owned subsidiary of First Business Financial Services, Inc. (Nasdaq: FBIZ)
• Primary Focus: Commercial banking, asset-based lending, accounts receivable financing, inventory floorplan lending
• Typical Deal Size: ~$5.7M (Total Volume ÷ Total Deals)

Tale of the Tape

• Deals Logged: 14
• Volume Drafted: $79,800,000
• Primary Asset Focus: Accounts Receivable (6) | Inventory/Automotive (3) | Equipment & Real Estate (2)
• Most Common Loan Term: Term Duration: Not Disclosed (majority) | Structural Terms: Inventory Floorplan Line (3) | Factoring Facility structure noted (1)
• Primary Loan Type: Factoring Facility (6) | Revolving Line of Credit (4) | Inventory Floorplan Line of Credit (3) | Ledgered Line Facility (1)
• Top States: Texas (3), Virginia (1), Tennessee (1), Ohio (1), South Carolina (1), Florida (1)

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2025 PERFORMANCE SUMMARY

First Business Bank logged 14 deals totaling $79,800,000 in verified capital deployed during the period covered. That’s a diverse book for a bank-subsidiary lender at this size — factoring, floorplan, multi-tranche ABL, and a ledgered line, all closed as sole lender across ten different states. First Business Bank isn’t cherry-picking deal types. It’s running a full specialty finance product stack and deploying it wherever the borrower fits, regardless of geography.

Deployment timing skews sharply toward the back half of the year. Ten of fourteen deals closed between August and November — First Business Bank logged more deals in those four months than in the prior seven combined. September and November each produced three closings. The January through June stretch accounts for just four deals, with no month producing more than one. That H2 concentration may reflect the bank’s fiscal year dynamics, borrower budget cycles in its target industries, or simply the maturation of its specialty finance origination pipeline in 2025.

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DEAL FLOW ANALYSIS

• Deal Size Range: Deals range from $1,000,000 to $18,000,000. Seven of fourteen deals land between $3M and $7.5M — that’s the clear sweet spot. The two largest deals ($15M and $18M) are outliers anchoring the top of the range and both involve either acquisition financing or a federal government contractor’s working capital facility.
• Geographic Focus: Texas leads with three deals, all factoring facilities. No other state appears more than once. Ten different states are represented across fourteen deals, suggesting First Business Bank’s specialty finance teams originate nationally rather than within a regional footprint. The Madison, Wisconsin headquarters produces no deals in the dataset — all activity is out-of-market.
• Industry Patterns: IT consulting appears twice (both Texas, both factoring, both $1.5M — see anomaly note above). Automotive dealerships account for three deals across three different states. Manufacturing shows up in four deals spanning steel trusses, precision-machined metal parts, outdoor lighting, and liquid blending. Government contracting drives two of the largest deals in the dataset ($7.5M and $18M). Consumer products, software, and communications distribution round out the remainder.
• Loan Structures: First Business Bank deploys six distinct loan structures across fourteen deals. Factoring is the most common at six deals. Revolving lines of credit account for four — two of which are multi-tranche packages that combine revolving credit with equipment and real estate term loans. Inventory floorplan lines drive three automotive dealership deals. The ledgered line facility (Jan 3W) is the only instrument of its type in the dataset. No two multi-structure deals are identical.
• Deal Purposes: Growth funding and cash flow support dominate smaller deals. Acquisition financing drives two of the larger deals (Sept 5W, June 4W). Refinancing appears in one deal (Aug 2W). Turnaround support is explicit in two deals — the March outdoor lighting manufacturer and the September consumer products company navigating retail disruption. Consolidating banking relationships drives one automotive floorplan deal. First Business Bank is comfortable funding both growth situations and distress.
• Specific Example: In January 2025, First Business Bank closed an $18,000,000 ledgered line facility for a federal government contractor — the largest deal in the dataset and the only ledgered line structure among the fourteen. A ledgered line on government receivables requires specialized underwriting of contract terms, payment cycles, and agency-specific credit risk. That First Business Bank deployed this structure as the sole lender signals deep institutional capability in government contractor finance that goes well beyond standard factoring.
• Transaction Velocity: First Business Bank averaged one deal roughly every 2.5 weeks across the active window. The pace accelerated sharply in H2 — five deals closed across September and October alone. No obvious correlation exists between deal size and velocity. The $18M ledgered line closed in January during the quietest stretch of the year. The largest cluster of activity (August–November) spans a range of deal sizes from $1M to $15M.

Strategic Insight

First Business Bank’s product diversity isn’t accidental — it maps directly to the risk profiles of the borrowers it targets. Factoring for IT consultants and manufacturers signals tolerance for early-stage or variable-revenue businesses where invoices are the only bankable asset. Floorplan lines for automotive dealers require specialized collateral monitoring that most banks avoid. Multi-tranche ABL structures for acquisitions signal credit underwriting depth that goes beyond what a pure factoring shop can offer. The combination of these three product lines in a single bank — all closed as sole lender — means First Business Bank is building sticky relationships rather than transactional ones. A borrower who starts on a factoring facility and grows into a revolving ABL line never has to change lenders. That client lifecycle strategy is the real competitive engine here, and it shows up clearly in the data.

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IDEAL BORROWER PROFILE

The ideal borrower for First Business Bank, based on verified 2025 activity, is a privately held business — manufacturer, government contractor, distributor, or specialty retailer — that generates predictable receivables or inventory-backed collateral and needs a specialty finance solution that a conventional bank won’t structure.

• Deal Size Range: $1,000,000 to $18,000,000 (sweet spot: $3M–$7.5M)
• Industries: IT consulting (2), automotive dealerships (3), manufacturing (4), government contracting (2), consumer products (1), software/technology (1), communications distribution (1)
• Geography: National — Texas, Virginia, Tennessee, Ohio, South Carolina, Florida, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Illinois; 10 states represented
• Asset Types: Accounts receivable, automotive inventory, equipment, real estate, government contract receivables
• Use Cases: Working capital, acquisition financing, growth and cash flow support, refinancing, turnaround support, banking consolidation
• Loan Types: Factoring facility, revolving line of credit, inventory floorplan line, multi-tranche ABL, ledgered line facility

Competitive Positioning Insight

First Business Bank’s willingness to serve both turnaround situations and acquisition financing in the same year — with the same sole-lender structure — is a positioning signal most banks at this asset size won’t match. The March outdoor lighting turnaround and the September consumer products restructuring sit alongside the June acquisition financing and the September distributor acquisition. That’s not a coincidence of deal flow. First Business Bank has underwriting capability across the full business lifecycle: distress, stabilization, growth, and acquisition. Borrowers and brokers who think of First Business Bank only as a factoring shop are leaving the larger deal opportunity on the table.

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STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE BY AUDIENCE

FOR BORROWERS

• H2 Approval Window: Ten of fourteen First Business Bank deals closed between August and November. That back-half concentration is the clearest timing signal in the dataset — First Business Bank’s specialty finance teams are most active, and likely most capitalized, in the second half of the calendar year.
• Action: Submit your package in July or August. That positions your deal for approval before the September–November peak, when competition for attention is highest. A well-prepared submission in late Q2 or early Q3 gives you the best shot at a September close.
• Timing: Avoid January through May if you can. Only four deals closed in that six-month window. The bank isn’t idle — it’s simply less active in H1. If your deal has a hard timeline that falls in H1, submit earlier than you think you need to, and expect a slower process.

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FOR BROKERS

• Product Stack Breadth as a One-Lender Solution: First Business Bank closed factoring, floorplan, revolving ABL, multi-tranche structured credit, and a ledgered line — all as sole lender — in a single year. No other lender in the dataset at this deal size runs a product range this wide without syndicating.
• Action: Position First Business Bank as a full-service specialty finance alternative when your client has outgrown a single-product lender. If they’re factoring with one shop, flooring with another, and need ABL for an acquisition, First Business Bank can consolidate all three. That pitch is grounded in what they’ve already closed in 2025.
• Strategy: The automotive floorplan product is a specific edge. Three floorplan deals across three states — Tennessee, Ohio, Florida — shows a national origination capability in a niche most banks have exited. If you work with independent auto dealers who’ve lost their floor plan lender, First Business Bank is one of the few bank-subsidiary options still actively writing these facilities.

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FOR RIVAL LENDERS

• Government Contractor Concentration at the Top of the Book: The two largest deals in First Business Bank’s dataset — $18M (Jan 3W) and $7.5M (Mar 4W) — are both government contractor facilities. Those two deals represent 32% of total volume. First Business Bank’s government contractor book is its single largest concentration by dollar value.
• Action: Target First Business Bank’s government contractor clients during federal budget uncertainty windows — continuing resolutions, debt ceiling debates, or agency-level spending freezes. Contract receivables lose their advance rate value when payment timelines slip, and First Business Bank’s concentration here creates a pressure point that a competitor with diversified collateral underwriting can exploit.
• Defense: First Business Bank’s floorplan product is operationally specialized — it requires dealer audits, lot checks, and inventory tracking that most lenders have stopped investing in. If you compete in the automotive dealership space, match that operational infrastructure or don’t compete. Trying to win a floorplan client from First Business Bank on rate alone won’t work if you can’t run the collateral management.

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FOR ANALYSTS & FUNDS

• Multi-Tranche ABL as an Acquisition Finance Signal: Two of First Business Bank’s fourteen deals are acquisition-driven ABL structures — June 4W (liquid blending and packaging, Pennsylvania) and September 5W (communications distributor, South Carolina). Both are sole-lender deals at $6.75M and $15M respectively. First Business Bank is quietly building an acquisition finance capability in the lower middle market that most bank-subsidiary ABL shops don’t pursue at this ticket size.
• Observation: The presence of acquisition-driven ABL at the $6.75M–$15M range signals active M&A activity in manufacturing and distribution sectors that don’t surface in traditional deal databases. First Business Bank’s deal flow is a leading indicator of lower-middle-market deal volume in these sectors — transactions too small for private equity coverage but large enough to require structured bank financing.
• Strategy: Monitor First Business Bank’s ABL acquisition deals as a proxy for lower-middle-market consolidation activity in manufacturing and specialty distribution. A lender writing sole-lender acquisition facilities in these sectors is seeing deal flow before it reaches the press. For funds focused on lower-middle-market industrial or distribution M&A, First Business Bank’s origination pipeline is a credible sourcing signal worth tracking through public tombstone data.