A Black-Owned Investment Group is Acquiring Utah’s Holladay Bank

An investment firm backed by Martin Luther King Jr.’s daughter agreed to purchase closely held Utah-based Holladay Bank and Trust, as it seeks to join the fewer than two dozen US lenders that are Black-owned.

Redemption Holding Co., a new firm, said the purchase would mark the first time that an existing US commercial bank becomes a Black-owned Minority Depository Institution through an acquisition. Bernice A. King will be senior vice president of corporate strategy and an advisory board member, and former White House policy adviser Ashley D. Bell is chief executive officer.

“Black banks make the American dream ...