*Making history is a really great way to wrap up Black History Month. That’s exactly what Atlanta-based Bernice King and Ashley D. Bell are doing by becoming the first minority investors (as far as it’s known) to purchase a white-owned bank and then converting it to a Black-owned entity.
What makes this scenario even more interesting is that the bank, Holladay Bank & Trust, is in Utah. And we all know there are not a lot of Black folks in Utah. So what’s the deal? Well, read on to find out.
With the purchase of Holladay Bank & Trust – King, Bell, and former NFL player Dhani Jones through their Redemption Holding Company – it will become the only Black-owned bank in the Mountain West region of the country, pending regulatory approval, according to a Tuesday news release.
“Black banks make the American dream possible for all Americans by deploying resources that uniquely address the financial realities of communities that have been systematically excluded, overcharged, and under-capitalized for hundreds of years,” said Bell, who is Redemption Holding Company’s CEO. “Redemption will serve as a lifeline to the next wave of Black and Brown first-time home buyers and small business entrepreneurs across the country.”
The AJC reports that “According to Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. records, Holladay is a tiny institution with 10 employees and ended 2022 with $68 million in loans and other assets under management. The bank reported more than $56 million in deposits at the end of last year and reported $1.3 million in net income, a 27% increase from 2021. The bank’s current management and staff will remain upon the change in ownership.”
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Ashley Bell and Bernice King are not novices in the banking industry. They previously co-founded the National Black Bank Foundation, which has steered $600 million of deal flow into Black banks since 2020. They noted that acquiring a non-minority bank helps reverse a trend of Black banks dwindling in numbers over recent years. The stark reality is that in 2001, there were 48 Black-owned banks insured by the FDIC but in 2023 that that number is now less than 20 now.
“In my father’s last public address on April 3, 1968, he preached the imperative to accelerate the financial inclusion of Black Americans by supporting mission-driven Black banks — something he called a ‘bank-in movement,’” King said in the release. “More than half a century of struggle and incremental progress later, we’re making good on daddy’s call to bank-in by creating new centers of opportunity for people of color, starting with this Black-led bank acquisition.”
Redemption Holding Company’s board and investors consist of “a growing number of Black doctors, lawyers, and business leaders from across the country,” the release said. The company plans to continue Holladay’s existing functions while adding a digital banking platform and offering both small business loans and mortgages through partnering with major national lending institutions.
