Harlem Nocturne
from Summer 2000
by Antonio Ramirez
Harlem`s troubled Carver Bancorp, the largest black-owned U.S. bank, has finally agreed to let two dissident shareholders from Boston have seats on its board. In return, the Bostonians agreed to drop a lawsuit against the bank.
As Corporate Board Member reported ("Directors in the Hot Seat," Winter 1999), Carver has been battling the industry`s big-is-better trend and spurning merger advances from Kevin Cohee. Cohee is CEO of the Boston Bank of Commerce, a smaller black enterprise controlled by him and his wife, Teri Williams, the dissident new directors.
Carver investors, some of whom have been pushing the bank to accept the merger offer, will be able to vote for or against the proposed deal at the 2001 meeting, for which a date has yet to be set.
For a while, Carver also tried to hang on to its chairman, David R. Jones, and former New York Mayor David Dinkins as directors. But within a week of the appointment of Cohee and Williams, and hard on the heels of announcing a $1.1 million loss for the fiscal year that ended March 31, the bank replaced them.
The legal settlement included an agreement by Carver to pay Cohee $475,000 in court costs. Williams claimed a major victory, saying that "Carver capitulated." A spokesperson for Carver CEO Deborah C. Wright said, "It`s time to move on."
