Savannah, Georgia – Carver Financial Corporation, the holding company for Carver State Bank in Savannah, GA and Alamerica Bank in Birmingham, AL, will receive an allocation of $40 million in New Markets Tax Credits (NMTC) from the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund. This award is the third won by Carver, which also received a $30 million award in 2018 and a $50 million award in 2020. There are no other recipients in the cities of Savannah or Birmingham, and only six total across Georgia (5) and Alabama (1).
Carver leveraged prior awards into investments in community facilities, manufacturing, healthcare, and small business in rural and urban communities across Georgia, creating over 1,000 permanent jobs. In addition, Carver’s NMTC investments have resulted in over 96,000 patients receiving quality healthcare and over 5,000 youth served across the state every year. With last week’s announcement, Carver remains the only community bank in Georgia to ever win a NMTC allocation. They were the first Georgia entity outside metro Atlanta to ever win an allocation.
With their recent acquisition of Alamerica Bank in Birmingham, AL, Carver plans to deploy funds across both states.
Carver State Bank was founded in 1927 in Savannah, Georgia. As one of only twenty-two Black-owned banks in the U.S., and a Treasury certified CDFI, Carver has embraced its mission by offering commercial and consumer deposit accounts and loan products, including SBA and other small business loans, together with sophisticated tools like New Markets Tax Credits.
“Carver is honored to receive its third NMTC award. It validates what we have been doing for nearly a century: bringing every available tool to help bring opportunity to Black and low-income communities across our target markets in Georgia, and now, Alabama.” said Robert E. James, II, President and CEO of Carver Financial Corporation.
The program was enacted in 2000 to stimulate private investment and economic growth in low income urban and rural communities. These areas lack access to the patient capital needed to support and grow businesses, create jobs, and sustain healthy local economies. The NMTC is a 39 percent federal tax credit, earned over seven years, on investments made in economically distressed communities.
“The award encourages investment in the communities we serve as a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI). It’s one of the many innovative tools that we can leverage in our mission to Provide The Building Blocks to Financial Freedom,” said Carver Chairman and CEO Robert E. James, Sr. “Alamerica Bank is excited to be a part of Carver Financial and to be able to bring sophisticated resources like the New Markets Tax Credit to the Birmingham community and State of Alabama,” said Jason Eppenger, President & CEO of Alamerica Bank.
Carver Financial Corporation, Carver State Bank, Carver Development CDE and Alamerica Bank are equal opportunity lenders. They are seeking larger projects ($5 million to $50 million in size) in rural and urban Alabama and Georgia that will create new, high quality and accessible manufacturing jobs, provide access to healthcare or youth services, or smaller projects (under $4 million) that involve providing expansion capital to small businesses, especially those owned by minorities.
For more information, about Carver, please visit: www.carverstatebank.com. To learn more about the New Markets Tax Credit Program, visit www.cdfifund.gov/nmtc.