An activist investor group is seeking to put two of its members on the board of the New York-based Carver Bancorp, one of the nation's oldest and largest Black-owned financial institutions.
Dream Chasers Capital Group, which claims to own or control 9.7% of Carver's 5.1 million outstanding shares, filed a proxy report with the Securities and Exchange Commission last week, nominating Jeffrey Anderson and Jeffrey Bailey to serve three-year director terms.
Carver's annual meeting is scheduled for Dec. 12.
Anderson, a certified public accountant, has held executive positions at several large financial services firms, including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and insurer AIG. Bailey, a longtime entrepreneur and the CEO of Dunham metal processing in Orange, California, is Carver's largest shareholder, Dream Chasers said.
It's the latest move by Dream Chasers to assert control at the $749 million-asset bank.
Earlier this year, Carver rejected
Carver filed a proxy with the SEC earlier this month, urging shareholders to vote against Dream Chasers and for its own nominees, Kenneth Knuckles, the retired CEO of the Manhattan Empowerment Zone Development Corp., and Jillian Joseph, a veteran New York attorney who has served on Carver's seven-member board since 2019.
In an open letter Monday, Dream Chasers CEO Greg Lewis said the upcoming director vote offered Carver investors the opportunity to end "years of poor stock price performance, operating losses into the millions of dollars and massive shareholder value destruction."
The group's letter comes less than two weeks after Carver's
In its Nov. 1 proxy, Carver pointed to several positive trends that emerged during MacKay's stewardship, including gains in loans, deposits and net interest income, all of which increased in the 12 months ended June 30. "Carver has achieved notable financial milestones that underscore the strength of our strategic plan to improve profitability and drive shareholder value," the proxy stated.
In May, the bank said it received a $25 million loan from the state-supported New York Green Bank to help finance decarbonization projects inside Carver's urban footprint.
Dream Chasers, for its part, said none of the progress Carver pointed to has been reflected in the bank's bottom line. "The fundamental truth is that no company can fulfill its mission if it is losing money," Lewis wrote in Monday's letter.
Carver, which has been designated a community development financial institution by the Department of the Treasury, was founded in Harlem in 1948 to serve African-American communities whose access to banking services was limited.
