Business
Largest black-owned bank in US will not close
Carver Bancorp CEO Deborah Wright
Largest black-run bank in U.S., overwhelmed by soured real estate loans, gets a US$55 million cash rescue from Citigroup, Goldman, Morgan Stanley and other key investors.
Carver Bancorp‘s shareholders confronted a painful choice on Tuesday. They could vote to cede control of the Harlem-based institution to a consortium of Wall Street firms and the U.S. government in return for US$55 million of cash to rescue their ailing bank. Turning the money down would likely have doomed Carver Federal Savings, the nation’s largest bank founded and run by African Americans.
The shareholders voted to approve the rescue package.
Carver Bancorp CEO Deborah Wright tried to assure the audience at Harlem’s Studio Museum that Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and the other new owners are “keenly attuned to our mission” and “wouldn’t have stepped up” if they didn’t think Carver was worth preserving.