Appalachian Truss, located in Burnsville, North Carolina, is a roof and floor truss manufacturing plant that serves local contractors and homebuilders in surrounding states. The team at Appalachian Truss prioritizes quality workmanship and customer service, which differentiates them from their competitors. They also offer crane services to streamline truss installation. Appalachian Truss has a sister location, Garfield Truss, located in the Central Lakes area of Minnesota.
The new parent company of the plant, The Oxford Group, is led by CEO Brian Swanson. Brian has 34 years of experience in the manufacturing industry, specifically in the forest product and automation, and life sciences industries. In his position at The Oxford Group, he led the search for companies in the industry to acquire and invest in. They evaluated over 100 companies based on a scoring system that discerned which companies might be a good fit for acquisition. They discovered Appalachian Truss using this scoring system, as the plant was already successful, met their cash flow objectives, and had a crew on site ready to take on more with their development.
When The Oxford Group was ready to acquire Appalachian Truss, Brian wanted to keep their cash resources as liquid as possible. He was motivated to pursue an SBA loan, particularly because of the low down payment. When their bank was unable to do an SBA loan in North Carolina, he turned to the broker they worked with for the deal. The broker from Viking Merger and Acquisition provided him with a shortlist of SBA lenders in the area, including one of our experienced Business Development Officers. Brian found our BDO to be a great cultural fit and worked well with his team. He was able to structure an SBA 7(a) loan to help The Oxford Group acquire the business, purchase commercial real estate, and provide working capital to maintain cash flow in the business.
Brian Swanson had this to say about his partnership with the team at FNB:
He was knowledgeable, professional, and organized. He dug into the details to make sure that this deal was a good acquisition. He communicated with us regularly and held us accountable. We would absolutely recommend the team at FNB Small Business Finance to other business owners. In the future, we do intend to acquire more companies in the area and will go back to FNB.
We enjoyed partnering with Brian and his team at The Oxford Group to help them achieve their business goals! We wish them all the success as they continue to grow Appalachian Truss and acquire more businesses in the manufacturing industry.
