During Wednesday’s Senate Small Business & Entrepreneurship Committee hearing, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) questioned Benjamin Geis, Managing Director of Eagle Private Capital, about Small Business Investment Companies.
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00:00Thank you, Senator Rosen. Senator Hawley.
00:03Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Thanks to all of our witnesses for being here.
00:07Mr. Geis, I want to start with you because I understand that you are a Missourian and you are a St. Louis guy. Is that right?
00:13Although I think you went to college on the other side of the state, or my nick of the woods. Rockhurst University?
00:18Okay, very good. Now, were you born and raised in St. Louis?
00:22I was not.
00:23Okay.
00:25He's helping me all the time.
00:26I could hear you. That's fine. Keep going. You're on a roll. You're on a roll.
00:29No, I was not born in St. Louis. I was born in Nebraska, but I'm not an atypical St. Louis story.
00:35I married a St. Louis girl, so I've been there for 26 years.
00:37Oh, there you go. All right. Well, that's good. Hey, we'll claim you. That's great.
00:40You're a Missourian in my book.
00:42Yeah, right?
00:43Let me ask you, in your testimony, your written testimony, you included the helpful chart explaining how the SBIC program helps spur investment in small business.
00:51And I wonder if you could just tell us, just give us an overview.
00:54Tell us about the SBIC program, what it is, and why it matters so much to Missouri.
00:59Just give us your perspective on that.
01:01Yeah. So, you know, I think I'd come at it from a couple of different angles.
01:05So, first of all, you know, it's a stable, longstanding program.
01:08It's been around since 1958.
01:10It's operated at a zero subsidy from the taxpayer since its inception.
01:15But I think what's critical about what SBICs do in Missouri and lots of other states is we provide that critical next stage of capital to really go create the growth to drive to the next level.
01:31So, you know, oftentimes entrepreneurs go raise, you know, capital, invest their own money to start their businesses.
01:37But when they hit sort of a critical inflection point, they need that next round of capital to really invigorate growth.
01:43And that's what SBICs do.
01:45Yeah, very good.
01:46In fact, if I've got my statistics correct, in FY24 alone, SBICs invested in Missouri $192 million in more than 20 small businesses across the state.
01:57That capital supported over 3,000 jobs in the state of Missouri.
02:00Yeah.
02:00That's pretty good.
02:01We want every single one of those jobs.
02:03Yeah, and I think, you know, SBICs fill a gap, right?
02:06I mean, there are, you know, everybody knows about, you know, the capital markets and the large lenders and, you know, larger private equity funds that ultimately invest, you know, those large dollars in capital that we hear about.
02:17But SBICs are squarely in the heartland of America and small businesses.
02:23I mean, that's what we do day in and day out.
02:25Very good.
02:26Let me ask you to talk about the role that small businesses can play in the manufacturing sector and how SBIC can be used to help spur industrial growth.
02:35I mean, can you talk about that?
02:36Because this is a big need.
02:38And the backdrop here that I probably don't have to explain to anybody on the panel or anybody watching this hearing is that, you know, in America as a whole, we have lost 4 million jobs, it is, particularly in the industrial sector, to China since 2001.
02:53In Missouri, it's close to 60,000 jobs.
02:57We need more industry.
02:59We need more manufacturing of all kinds.
03:01Tell us about the SBIC component here for that.
03:05Yeah, I mean, it's a big focus of what we do.
03:07I mean, if I look at the Eagle Funds, you know, 25 to 35 percent of our investments are in manufacturing companies.
03:14And the stories that we could share within our portfolio are not too dissimilar from my other panelists here.
03:20But, you know, we provide the capital to help build the new plant, you know, to really spur and change growth.
03:26So that is what the SBIC program does.
03:29Very critical.
03:30Thank you for the work you do.
03:31Thank you for being willing to be here and to testify.
03:34And with that, I yield back to you, Madam.