New Salt Lake City black-owned bank honors founding investors

On its path to creating a first-of-its-kind hub for black investment in the Rockies, Redemption Holding Co. honored its investors at a recent reception in Salt Lake City.

Gathering at the Zions Bank building in downtown Salt Lake City, the company highlighted its plan, announced in February, to purchase Holladay Bank & Trust, marking the first time in U.S. history for an exiting commercial bank to become a black-owned minority depository institution (MDI) through an acquisition.

RHC said the new MDI “will deliver families and business owners from exclusionary tactics and the intergenerational poverty they breed.” RHC says it is expected to become the only black-owned MDI headquartered west of Texas and one of only 17 black-owned MDIs in the nation.

Among the scheduled speakers at the Salt Lake City reception were Ashley Bell, the company’s chairman and CEO; Bernice A. King, CEO of The King Center and the youngest daughter of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King; Sui Lang Panoke, Zions Bank’s senior vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion; Mehrsa Baradaran, author of “The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap”; Mauli Bonner, songwriter, vocal director, film producer and director; Kevin Johnson, director of the Spelman College Glee Club; and David Morrow, director of the Morehouse College Glee Club.

Bell, King and Dhani Jones, a former NFL player, are among the investors. Others reported to be investors are New York Community Bank and Ryan Smith, owner of the Utah Jazz. RHC has said initial investors include black doctors, lawyers and business leaders from across the U.S.

Bell is a corporate finance attorney who is the founder and CEO of fintech company Ready Life. His experience includes serving as White House policy advisor for entrepreneurship and innovation in the Office of American Innovation. He also led the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Southeast Region; co-founded with King the National Black Bank Foundation; and was the founder and executive director of the 20/20 Bipartisan Justice Center, a national organization dedicated to reforming criminal justice.

King, who will serve as the bank’s senior vice president of corporate strategy and alliances, also will be on its advisory board alongside Jones.

Founded in 1974, Holladay Bank & Trust is a state-chartered commercial bank that at the end of 2022 had about $68 million in total assets and $56 million in total deposits. RHC said its management and staff would remain upon conversion to Redemption.

RHC has said that in addition to the continued offering of Holladay’s core products, it would work with other MDIs to facilitate national large-scale lending opportunities; leverage technology to create a full-service digital banking platform for its customers; offer SBA lending; and offer loan origination providing mortgages in partnership with major national lending institutions.

Citing several sources, Bank Rate recently reported that while there are more than 4,000 FDIC-insured banks, less than 1 percent are owned by blacks. Credit unions are 7.5 percent black-owned. Since 2001, the number of black-owned banks has fallen by over 50 percent. Total black-owned bank assets were under $8 billion in September 2022, compared to more than $22 trillion in total assets in the U.S. banking system, Bank Rate said.