Lending to small U.S. businesses is making a comeback on Wall Street, with 12 investment firms arranging $1.38 billion of initial stock offerings to funnel cash to the nation’s biggest job creators, Bloomberg reported.

Oaktree Capital Management LP, Crescent Capital Group LP and Churchill Financial Holdings LLC are forming business development corporations, which typically lend to businesses with annual revenue of less than $500 million, according to filings with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission.

The wave of business development corporation formations is the largest in at least seven years, based on data from Ipreo Holdings LLC in New York, Bloomberg said.

“Capital needs to start getting down to the middle market and then below to the innovators,” said Leon Wagner, who co-founded GoldenTree Asset Management LP, a New York hedge fund focused on debt markets. “That’s what America needs to get deployed into the economy for significant growth to occur.”

Small businesses have had fewer financing options since institutions such as CIT Group Inc. and CapitalSource Inc. cut lending after the 2008 bankruptcy of Lehman Bros. Holdings Inc., Bloomberg said.

Banks, trying to rebuild following $2 trillion of write-downs and losses since the start of 2007, continue to favor government and related bonds to making loans. Holdings of such debt has risen 44 percent to $1.68 trillion since October 2008, while commercial and industrial loans outstanding have fallen 31 percent to $1.26 trillion, Federal Reserve data show.