But those bad loans are collateralized with real estate.
Subways are much smaller however and most times do not include real estate, if your bank is allowing <$30K downpayment for a million dollar loan, sign me up.
Also Subways go on how much they do per week in revenue. Average unit volume for a Subway is $250,000/year which is $5,000/week and they range around 30 to 40 multiple for that. As in a $5000/week revenue Subway with a decent lease will cost around $200,000 all in. So if you're getting paperwork for million dollars, those Subways are extremely high revenue Subways and are making a lot of money on their own. I'm thinking typically around $30,000/week or more which indicates that there are problems with the operators and not stores.
And finally, its been a while for me but since you mentioned SBA loans, PE firms won't qualify for those as the maximum borrower net worth for SBA loans is $5,000,000. And asset net worth of $15,000,000.