Financing snapshot
The SBA 7(a) FOIA history includes 309 loans tied to Ace Hardware, representing $306M in gross approved volume. The average gross loan size in this data set is about $989,620.
Live Oak Banking Company and Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. show the strongest history in the SBA data set. The point is not that one of these lenders will approve every buyer. The useful signal is that credit teams at these institutions have previously seen this brand or a similar transaction profile.
Where lender outreach should start
For a Ace Hardware buyer, the first outreach list should combine two data views: lenders with historical brand activity and lenders currently active in the project state. A lender that appears in both places is usually a better first conversation than a generic national ranking.
Texas appears most often in the brand history, with 36 loans in the data set. That does not make Texas the only viable state, but it does show where this brand has produced visible SBA lending activity.
How a borrower should prepare
Before applying, a buyer should prepare a full project-cost schedule, source of equity injection, personal financial statement, credit explanation if needed, resume, franchise approval status, lease or site-control details, and a conservative opening working-capital plan.
If the requested loan is materially larger than the historical average for Ace Hardware, the borrower should expect extra questions about buildout cost, collateral, ramp assumptions, and whether the project is a startup, resale, expansion, or multi-unit development.
How to read the charge-off number
The page shows a naive charge-off incidence because the FOIA data includes loan status fields. Do not treat that number as a live default prediction. Recent loans have not seasoned, older loans had different credit conditions, and public data alone cannot explain borrower-level facts.
SourceFunding uses loss data as context only. The stronger near-term use case is lender appetite: who has funded similar deals and who is active now.