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Our Founder
Penn J. Ritter President & CEO Business Lenders
During the 2008-2009 U.S. financial crisis, Mr. Ritter restructured the company to offer third-party specialized loan servicing for SBA 7(a) and 504 loans. In addition to servicing its own portfolio Business Lenders provides third party loan servicing to banks with limited expertise in SBA loan servicing, and to those that wish to focus on credit related processing while reducing the cost and administrative expenses of loan servicing. Mr. Ritter plays an active role in government relations. He is formally Chairperson of the Connecticut SBA's Key to the Future, the SBA's non-profit LLC. He has spoken at numerous SBA panel discussions around the country. Mr. Ritter previously served as leadership chairman of NFIB/Connecticut, the largest small-business advocacy group in Connecticut and nationwide. He was House Clerk to the Connecticut House of Representatives for thirteen years serving five House Speakers, three governors and numerous Majority and Minority leaders. His father George, brothers Tom and John all served in the Connecticut State Legislature, Tom as House Speaker. His nephew Matt was elected to the state legislature in November 2010. Mr. Ritter graduated from the Loomis Chaffee School and Lawrence University (Summa cum Laude) in Appleton, Wisconsin. |
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Penn Ritter is founder, President, & CEO of Business Lenders, a Bank of America Merrill Lynch Company. Penn is responsible for overseeing an organization that has closed in excess of $500 million in 7(a) loans since inception. He, his father and a third partner, Attorney Tom Kellogg, started the company in 1993 with a line of credit from Textron Financial Corporation. After growing the business, he led the management team that sold the company to Medallion Financial Corporation in 1997. Over a five-year period he built a national lending platform, tripling the company's size and placing it in the top ten ranking among non-bank lending companies nationally. In 2005 he led his senior management team in its management buyout by Merrill Lynch and secured a $100 million credit facility from Merrill. Business Lenders then expanded its origination platform, growing originations 275% from 2005 to 2007. In 2007 he and his team assisted Merrill Lynch in acquiring a $500 million SBA portfolio from GE Capital expressly for the Business Lenders team to service.