DURHAM, N.C. — The Center for Community Self Help's CU expansionto the West Coast has been so successful another CU is seeking amerger with Self-Help Federal Credit Union.
The Center for Community Self-Help founded both the $300 million,state-chartered Self-Help Credit Union in Durham and the newlylaunched $10 Million Self-Help FCU in Oakland, Calif.
The community development lender launched SelfHelp FCU in July 2008with a $5 million investment of its own funds. The $5 million fromSelf-Help consisted of a $2.5 million equity investment and $2.5million in secondary capital.
Self-Help launched the federal credit union to help it build alending presence on the West Coast and to support an officeSelf-Help launched in Oakland in September 2006, according to SteveZuckerman, manager of Self-Help's California operations.
Since its opening day, Self-Help FCU has been busy. Even before itwas chartered, Self-Help representatives had begun talking to the$3.5 million People's Community Partnership FCU, another relativelyyoung FCU headquartered in Oakland about the possibility ofmerging. The two credit unions completed their merger two monthsafter the NCUA chartered SHFCU and have been hard at work sinceironing out the details of merging the two organizations,
Zuckerman said.
Zuckerman joined David Beck, spokesman for the state-charteredSelf-Help CU, in explaining that the organization decided tocharter a
federal credit union because it wanted the ability to make loans tomembers who live outside North Carolina
while maintaining Self-Help CU's
state charter.
“We have a very long history as a state-chartered credit union andvery good relations with the state regulator,” Beck said. “So wewanted to both expand our lending and still keep our homecharter.”
“Over the past eight years, People's has become an importantinstitution serving the Oakland flatlands. We're excited to havefound a partner who so closely shares People's communitydevelopment mission. We're confident that with Self-Help, People'swill flourish and be able to serve our community for years tocome,” said Elissa Dennis, a People's founding board member andprevious board chair.
“This merger will allow People's to expand our range of services toOakland families,” said People's Branch Manager Sherry Alexander.“As a relatively young institution, we can now confidently moveforward in a difficult financial environment with a superb partnerin Self-Help.”
“People's has earned an outstanding reputation in Oakland,”Zuckerman said at the time the
merger was concluded. “This merger will provide People's thebenefit of Self-Help's broad lending experience and allow Self-Helpto better serve low-
wealth California families.”
Zuckerman said there had been some challenges to charter andcomplete a credit union merger 2,000 miles away from the sponsoringorganization, but added that Self-Help already runs seven branchesacross North Carolina and so was familiar with setting up newbranches.
He also said that the larger, state-chartered Self-Help would serveas a back-office sponsor for the federal credit union, helping witha lot of the business activities that both credit unions share andsparing the smaller institution the expense of duplicatingit.
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