American Prudential Capital, Inc.

We at American Prudential have credit lines of up to 6 million available for companies working on the Gulf Clean Up.  Right Now!

Already we are working with several companies supplying workers to the area to do the job of cleaning up the oil.  For these companies this means a real strain on their cash flow.

In some cases the clients have seen their accounts receivable balloon up by 2 to 4 million dollars overnight.  Now, that is a cash flow problem.  It will take 45 to 90 days for them to be paid and they have payroll to make every week.

They are thankful for the work but would not be able to take it if it were not for the funds we have available for them.  The good news is that we have plenty more available and the best news is that we are not ratcheting up the price because of the demand.

These are times when it pays to know who you are doing business with.  Our rates are a flat discount off the face value of the invoice and we never charge “hidden” fees.  There are no fees for applying for our services and no fees for discontinuing our services.

Our clients always get a fair price and excellent service.  So, if you have an opportunity to do some good for us here in the Gulf but you are wondering how you will fund your operation, give us a call.  We care about out Gulf states and the companies who serve here.

We will take care of you and treat you right.  You have our word on that.

Brenda Standlee

You are probably not an elitist.  But you may have innocently been supporting a profit-making elitist concept without even knowing it.

The pitch goes something like this:  ”pay me $20,000  to $200,000 and I will let you join my club where you will meet only the most important movers and shakers around.”

When invited to attend one such event I was told over and over how very important the other people in the room were.  There was only one problem…I had never heard of any of those folks.

Come to find out they probably had been told that I would be at the meeting and that I was “really important.”   Needless to say someone was selling elitism but I was not buying.

The identifying mark of truly great leaders and statesmen over the years is that they meet people on level ground.  I think Senator Kerry lost his bid for the Presidential nomination because he was perceived as an elitist.

John McCain, who went to school with Kerry and moves in the same circles, did not get labeled an elitist.  Neither of them won the office.  Possibly they are both elitists.  I don’t know.

What I do know is that I make conscious decisions to avoid elitist circles.  My clients are not elitists, my prospects are not elitists, my friends are not elitists.  So, I see no practical advantage in being elitist.

But every so often someone tries to convince me that I should move in elite circles.  Why?

I believe that elitism as a business model may work if you are selling 30 million dollar houses in River Oaks.  For the rest of us, the Internet, email, Facebook, Linked-In, Twitter and all the rest have taken us into the business model of egalitarianism.

So, put on your best marketing face but make it your real face.   Tell people the truth and treat folks with respect.  Don’t “think more highly of yourself than you ought.”

Meet prospects on level ground and avoid groups that leverage off your “importance” to sell memberships or anything else.  Sure you will have to meet some folks who cannot use your goods or services.

But, you will never know who they know who knows someone who does need what you have to offer.  And that referral will be more than a warm lead, it will be a real deal.

Brenda Standlee

If you grow up poor it is easy to have  a defeated/helpless attitude.  That is, it is easy unless your parents do not have a “poverty mentality.”

I once knew a family, and you probably know one too, who came here from Vietnam with nothing.  The parents worked constantly mostly at the local gas station/food mart.  The children all did well in school and the parents helped them go to college.  They graduated and went on to become Pharmacists and Doctors.  How did this family succeed in getting out of poverty where so many others fail?

I think they succeeded because of their investments.  The parents wisely understood that they would not be leaving any great legacy of stock earnings to their children.  What they would leave them with was an education with which their children could pull, not only themselves but their parents as well, out of what could have been hope-crushing poverty.

The parents invested in their children.  They stayed the course through all the really tough years of raising children.  It was not easier for them than other families but harder; they worked all the time.  Older children had to supervise younger children.  Homework had to be checked and curfews enforced.

They were frugal, yes and they lived on what they earned.  They did not own a house which they could not afford. They did not own a house at all.   Yet, they ended their poverty in one generation!

You see these parents had internalized the concept of  ”servant leadership.”

You have probably heard the story about the man who visits Heaven and hell.  In hell people are sitting around a pot of stew with spoons 5 feet long strapped to their arms.  They are starving because they cannot get the spoons back from the pot to their mouths; the spoons are too long.

In Heaven folks sit around a similar pot of stew with the same 5 foot long spoons strapped to their arms.  But in Heaven everyone is fat and happy because they use the spoons to feed each other.

If one poor Vietnamese immigrant family can end their poverty in one generation, why can’t one town, one city, one state, one nation?

Brenda Standlee

When I was a senior in High School my English Civilization instructor was Dr. R. Lawrence Dowell, as best I recall.

President Kennedy had just been assassinated.  We lived in a suburb of Washington, D.C.  As you can imagine, we were young and distraught.  This was a world-changing moment for all of us.

In the midst of this,  my instructor asked me to stand up to answer a question.  What he asked me was this:  ”Would you be willing to die for the President of the United States?”  Or, “would you be willing to die for the Presidency of the United States?”  I chose the Presidency, the institution…not the man.

So, at this time of remembrance of wars present and past, what makes me so proud of our armed forces is that they will not only die for the preservation of our institutions but they will die for the man, the President, the Vice President, the Chief Justice and the janitor who cleans their offices.

You see, they are willing to die for me individually, for you, for your children, for your grand children.  They are willing to take the bullet, to step in between me and certain death.

This may come as a surprise to you but it does not come as a surprise to them.  They are committed to protecting us.  They protect our insane right to be wrong, our right to disagree, our right to be politically “left” or “right. ”

They protect the institutions AND the individuals.  They are willing to die to protect even those who despise them.

Since most of us are not willing to die for the man as well as the office, perhaps the least we can do is honor those who do, who have, and who always will…Our national heroes!

Banks turn to American Prudential Capital and Hal Means to assist their commercial customers with alternative funding.

(May 12, 2010 ) Houston, TX – H. F. Hal Means is a 37-year veteran of Texas banking, having served as president & CEO of banks in Wharton, Houston, & Tyler, TX. Following retirement from banking in 1996, he helped individuals & small businesses solve their financial concerns as a Houston financial planner with AXA Advisors, LLC, a Paris, France-based worldwide financial services firm for 11 years, retiring in 2007. In January, 2008, Means joined & now serves as an independent representative of American Prudential Capital, Inc., a 20 year-old family-owned commercial factoring firm headquartered in Houston. His focus here is on working with startups & referrals from banks.

His extensive experience includes upper general management, finance, marketing, staff leadership & on boards of directors. He was the founding president of the Houston bank & organizing manager of several key bank departments, including the acquisition of accounts from over 100 East Texas banks.

He is a Life Member of both the Texas Association of Business and the Greater Houston Partnership. Means co-created a national award-winning bank television advertisement & served as president of the Henderson County, TX United Way campaign, on the founding board of directors of the Regional East Texas Food Bank, East Texas Area Boy Scouts of America, several other bank boards & on the National Board of the Bank Marketing Association.

Prior to his career in banking, Mr. Means served as a Captain in the U.S. Army Artillery. He and his wife of 44 years have two children and two grandchildren.

For Release:
May 10, 2010
0500hrs CDT

For more information contact:
Eric Standlee, 281-377-6296, eric@americanprudentialcap

I have to confess that I have a hard time imagining who you are reading this post.  There is much you could be doing and many pages you could be reading, but here you are.  Isn’t that the way life is?

There are so many voices you can listen to,  many self-styled “experts” telling you what they want you to hear.  It makes them feel better, I suppose.

But as an entrepreneur, what do you really need to hear?  Imagine that you had a very good father and he passed out of your life at a very early age.  Odds are you would really benefit from hearing him say, “Well done.  You did a good job; you were faithful and you helped others.”

Run your business with that comment as your main goal.  Do what is right, keep faith with what you know is the truth, give your very best, help others along the way.

I recently had the very sad experience of seeing what was reported to be the charitable giving record of our Vice President.  I hope the report from their tax return is wrong.  I mean this with all my heart.  I am not sure I would want my giving record made public.  How about you?

The same can be said of our “truth-telling” record, or our “forgiving” record, or our “patience” record.   Before I rush to condemn the record of another person, I need to examine my own, study it and see if I have lived up to my own beliefs.

What I know about your business (and mine) is that, if you are the boss, what you do will be evident in the behavior of your employees.  Before you listen to the next business guru, take a look at what your Father would say about your example.

Run your race to hear, “Well done good, and faithful servant.”  There is no higher praise.

In an address delivered Friday March 19, 2010, by Sheila C. Bair, the Chairman of the FDIC, Ms. Bair said, “Small businesses create two thirds or more of all net new jobs.  And they overwhelmingly rely on credit provided by community banks.”

She went on to explain that while “overall bank lending is down” by the largest decline since 1942, “the smallest banks…actually increased their loans by more than half of one percent.”

We agree with Ms. Bair on this; community banks are essential to our economy and they ARE doing their share and more to provide credit to our small business community.

“The worst excesses”, according to Ms. Bair, “that led to the credit crisis were not generated by community banks.”  Most of  the subprime and nontraditional mortgages were not in the community banks.

Ms. Bair is correct that “While so many big banks keep pulling back, (Community Banks) are hanging in there doing (their) best to support the credit needs of our struggling economy.  That deserves recognition in Washington, and all our thanks.”

So, I suggest you thank a community banker today in a way he/she will really understand, do your banking with them!  Vote with your feet.  What you deposit with them they loan out to businesses in your community which creates local jobs for your friends and relatives.

If you don’t know a good community banker, give me a call at 713-690-8877 x 211 and I will hook you up with a community banker in your area.  I will call the banker personally and introduce your company.

A local radio personality today posed the question,  ”If you only had three minutes to talk to a stranger, what would you say?”

If you are like most of us, your mind went to the weather, sports and politicians, likely grumbling about all three.  But I have a friend who asks a very different kind of question when he meets folks.  His name is Kevin McCarthy and he wrote the definitive book on finding your purpose in life, “The On-Purpose Person.”

Kevin asks something like this, “So, have you been around long enough to figure out why you are here?”  What an incredibly disarming question.  It opens up the whole discussion of our world views.  I mean, do you believe everything happens by accident or do you believe it happens by design?

Because, if you believe in accidental existence, then the question is futile; you aren’t here for any good reason at all.  But that flies in the face of every good deed we have ever done or hope to do.  It runs right up against our “search for meaning and meaningfulness” in life.

We are driven to find the deeper meaning and to make a difference.  Now, go on admit it you have thought to yourself at sometime that if you didn’t have to earn a living, you would do all sorts of wonderful good deeds to help humanity.  Who wouldn’t?

Well, that very drive comes from a deep belief that we are here for a reason, to serve a greater good, to serve others by doing something…to fulfill a PURPOSE.  We are here by design!

So, I ask you now, “Have you lived long enough to figure out why you are here?”  If you are still puzzling over that one get a copy of “The On-Purpose Person” and begin the journey.  You will never regret it.

What follows here is a recent official statement from “the examiners.”  On February 2, 2010 the President made a proposal for a Small Business Lending Fund (SBLF).

On February 4, 2010 the Federal and State examiners issued the joint statement included here.

I won’t bore you more than the reading of this official statement already does, but suffice it to say that in practice, when the examiners arrive at a fine well run community bank, the treatment is not consistent with promoting lending to small businesses.

If you cannot bear to read the entire statement, just read the last two sentences.  I think community bankers will agree that these sentences will come as a surprise to field examiners!

Our entire economy is built on the backs of small businesses and our community banks are our first line of defense.  What is good for community bankers is good for small businesses and what is good for small businesses is good for America.

For those of you who genuinely care about small businesses, I will write more later about what we need to tell our government, and hope to heaven they will listen.

In the meantime, if your community banker is tied up with regulators and simply cannot increase your line or make your working capital loan, there is a chance we can help.  We will try to step in the gap until your bank gets the liquidity and freedom it needs to lend again.

Your difficulty getting funding may well not be your fault and it certainly is not the fault of your banker.  But together, we can make it through.

Here is the Interagency Statement:

“Interagency Statement on Meeting the Credit Needs of Creditworthy Small Business Borrowers

The federal financial institutions regulatory agencies1 and the state supervisors 2(collectively, the “regulators”) are issuing this Interagency Statement on Meeting the Credit Needs of Creditworthy Small Business Borrowers (the “Statement”) to restate and elaborate their supervisory views on prudent lending to creditworthy small business borrowers.3

This Statement builds upon principles in existing guidance, including the November 2008 Interagency Statement on Meeting the Needs of Creditworthy Borrowers and the October 2009 Policy Statement on Prudent Commercial Real Estate Loan Workouts.

The regulators note that while the October 2009 statement focused on commercial real estate, many principles articulated in that guidance are applicable to small business lending.

Some small businesses are experiencing difficulty in obtaining or renewing credit to support their operations.4 Between June 30, 2008, and June 30, 2009, loans outstanding to small businesses and farms, as defined in the Consolidated Report of Condition (Call Report), declined 1.8 percent, by almost $14 billion.5 Although this category of lending increased slightly at institutions with total assets of less than $1 billion, it declined over 4 percent at institutions with total assets greater than $100 billion during this timeframe.

This decline is attributable to a number of factors, including weakness in the broader economy, decreasing loan demand, and higher levels of credit risk and delinquency. These factors have prompted institutions to review their lending practices, tighten their underwriting standards, and review their capacity to meet current and future credit demands. In addition, some financial institutions may have reduced lending due to a need to strengthen their own capital positions and balance sheets.

Supervisory Expectations

While the regulators believe that many of these responses by financial institutions are prudent in light of current economic conditions and the position of specific financial institutions, experience suggests that financial institutions may at times react to a significant economic downturn by becoming overly cautious with respect to small business lending.

Regulators are mindful of the harmful economic effects of an excessive tightening of credit availability in a downturn and are working through outreach and communication with the industry and supervisory staff to ensure that supervisory policies and actions do not inadvertently curtail the availability of credit to sound small business borrowers.

Financial institutions that engage in prudent small business lending after performing a comprehensive review of a borrower’s financial condition will not be subject to criticism for loans made on that basis.

1 The federal financial institutions regulatory agencies consist of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Office of Thrift Supervision, and the National Credit Union Administration (collectively, the “agencies”).

2 The state supervisors are represented through the Conference of State Bank Supervisors.

3 Financial institutions should apply the principles of this Statement in accordance with their internal definitions of small business loans or as appropriate in their loan portfolios. Small business lending includes loans to small businesses and farms, such as working capital lines of credit, secured and unsecured term loans, as well as unsecured revolving credit.

4 Responses to the Federal Reserve Board’s Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey indicate that the net fraction of banks that tightened credit standards and terms on C&I loans to small firms was very high in 2009, and exceeded its previous highs in the past twenty years.

5 The data is for commercial banks, where small business loans, as reported in the Call Report FFIEC 031 and 041, schedule RC-C, part II are defined as loans with original amounts of $1 million or less that are secured by nonfarm nonresidential properties or commercial and industrial loans plus loans with original balances of $500,000 or less for agricultural production or secured by farmland.

Underwriting and Risk Management Considerations

An institution should understand the long-term viability of the borrower’s business, and focus on the strength of a borrower’s business plan, including its plan for the use and repayment of borrowed funds. The institution should have an understanding of the competition and local market conditions affecting the borrower’s business and should not base lending decisions solely on national market trends when local conditions may be more favorable.

Further, while the regulators expect institutions to effectively monitor and manage credit concentrations, institutions should not automatically refuse credit to sound borrowers because of a borrower’s particular industry or geographic location. To the maximum extent possible, loan decisions should be made based on the creditworthiness of the individual borrower, consistent with prudent management of credit concentrations.

For most small business loans, the primary source of repayment is often the cash flow of the business, either through the conversion of current assets or ongoing business operations. An institution’s cash flow analysis should cover current and expected cash flows, and reflect expectations for the borrower’s performance over a reasonable range of future conditions, rather than overly optimistic or pessimistic cases. Many small business borrowers also rely on their personal wealth and resources to support loan requests.

A borrower’s credit history and financial strength, including credit score, are components of assessing willingness and ability to repay, and should be considered in conjunction with other judgmental factors, such as the strength of management. The loan structure should be appropriate for meeting the funding needs of the borrower given the type of credit and expected timing of the business’ cash flow.

Further, an institution should analyze the secondary sources of repayment, such as the strength of any guarantor or collateral support, and the ability of the borrower to provide additional capital. Institutions should not place excessive reliance on cyclical factors, such as appreciating or depreciating collateral values.

An institution should have robust risk management practices to identify, measure, monitor, and control credit risk in its lending activities. Further, institutions should promote a credit culture in which lenders develop and maintain prudent lending relationships and knowledge of borrowers. This culture should encourage lending staff to use sound judgment during the underwriting process. While institutions may use models to identify and manage concentration risk, portfolio management models that rely primarily on general inputs, such as geographic location and industry, should not be used as a substitute for the evaluation of an individual customer’s repayment capacity.

Examination Reviews

Examiners will not discourage prudent small business lending by financial institutions, nor will they criticize institutions for working in a prudent and constructive manner with small business borrowers. Examiners will expect institutions to employ sound underwriting and risk management practices, maintain adequate loan loss reserves and capital, and take appropriate charge-offs when warranted.

As with all lending, examiners are expected to take a balanced approach in assessing the adequacy of an institution’s risk management practices in its small business lending activities. As a general principle, examiners will not adversely classify loans solely due to a decline in the collateral value below the loan balance, provided the borrower has the willingness and ability to repay the loan according to reasonable terms. In addition, examiners will not classify loans due solely to the borrower’s association with a particular industry or geographic location that is experiencing financial difficulties.”

(We can only hope)