New owner buys Heritage Custom Fabricators with SBA 504 financing from Commerce Bank and Indiana Statewide CDC

It's a smooth transition from old owners to new at Heritage Custom Fabricators in Princeton. Sam Przymus purchased the company from Clint Butts, whose father founded Heritage Custom Fabricators in 1981. Buying the company meant purchasing Heritage's large pieces of manual and computer-controlled metal machining and fabrication equipment -- including gear cutters capable of workpieces 8 feet in diameter, vertical/horizontal lathes, vertical/horizontal milling machines, 400 Ton press brake, 8'x 20' CNC plasma/oxy table and overhead cranes capable to lift 30 tons. Commerce Bank of Evansville and Indiana Statewide Certified Development Corporation provided a loan from the U.S. Small Business Administration 504 program to help Przymus finance the purchase. Indiana Statewide CDC works with local lenders to provide SBA 504 loans to owners of small businesses. SBA 504 loans can give small business owners long-term, fixed rate financing similar to commercial loan terms available for large companies. Loans from Indiana Statewide CDC and partner lenders in 2016 provided more than $31 million to 44 small Hoosier small businesses, creating or saving 480 jobs. Przymus has worked with virtually every type of machine and managed production schedules during 20 years in the machine trades. He's known Heritage Custom Fabricators and its owners for years and joined the company last July. Przymus says the SBA 504 loan helps him get financing he needs despite never owning a business before. "The 504 loan allows the bank a little more comfort with me and my ability to drive the business," he says. Gene Dawson of Commerce Bank says the SBA 504 loan allows Heritage to spread out large payments for equipment over longer period of time than would be allowed with conventional bank financing. "The terms of the SBA 504 loan were beneficial to the cashflow for the borrower. The large expenses for the equipment could not have been repaid in the five-year term of a conventional loan," Dawson says. Heritage Custom Fabricators now employees 15 machinists, welders, engineers and office personnel.