Bank notes

Virginia Business
September 2006

Merger to create $2.5 billion bank
Ten small Virginia banks plan to merge and create a financial institution with more than $2.5 billion in assets.

The combined bank will be called Carter Bank & Trust and be based in Martinsville. It will be the largest statecharted bank based in Virginia.
Carter Bank & Trust will have 126 branches in Virginia and North Carolina. After the merger, it plans to seek regulatory approval to add another 25 branches.

Worth Harris Carter Jr. will be the bank’s chairman and president.
The 10 banks in the merger are: Blue Ridge Bank, Floyd; Central National Bank, Lynchburg; Community National Bank, South Boston; First National Bank, Rocky Mount; First National Exchange Bank, Roanoke; Mountain National Bank, Galax; Patrick Henry National Bank, Martinsville; Patriot Bank, Fredericksburg; Peoples National Bank, Danville; and Shenandoah National Bank, Staunton.

Robert Johnson’s Urban Trust Bank set to open branch in Washington

The flagship branch of Urban Trust Bank will open this month in Washington, D.C. It’s the first step in a plan by former Black Entertainment Television executive Robert L. Johnson to create a large, minority-owned financial services company.

Johnson acquired a controlling interest this spring in Metro Bank, a small Florida thrift in Orlando. He renamed it Urban Trust Bank and is opening its first branch in Washington at 1350 I St. N.W.

Already announced as a bank affiliate is UTB Education Finance, a business designed as the nation’s first minority-controlled, service loan provider. Johnson, co-founder of BET and a majority owner of the NBA Charlotte Bobcats, said in a statement that his Maryland-based RLJ Cos. LLC, along with a minority investment from Goldman Sachs, created UTB to help families meet the increasing costs of a college education. “We are excited to be positioned to create one of the first minority-controlled student loan companies that we hope will be capable of helping millions of students in attaining higher education.”

The principals behind Urban Trust Bank include Johnson, who sold BET to Viacom in 2000 for $3 billion; former Metro Bank owner Frank J. Hanna Jr., (who retains an interest in the new company) and Dwight L. Bush, the bank’s president and CEO. Bush is a former executive with Sallie Mae and Chase Manhattan Bank.