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Merrill Lynch, Greenlining Institute Announce New $500 Million Initiative for Under-Served California Communities
COMPANY PUTS FINANCIAL, INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL OF WALL STREET TO WORK FOR COMMUNITIES
LOS ANGELES, April 10, 2003 — Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER) and The Greenlining Institute today announced a $500 million initiative to expand small business lending and promote economic opportunities in Asian Pacific, Latino and African-American communities throughout California.
The new program, the first of its kind by a Wall Street investment firm, represents a dramatic expansion of Merrill Lynch's commitment to provide financial expertise and innovative approaches to help businesses in historically under-served markets in California.
The program, The California Partnership for Economic Achievement, builds on ground-breaking pilot programs in Southern California and the San Francisco Bay Area that have led to expanded lending opportunities in traditionally under-served communities. This initiative is part of a new, five-year outreach commitment and will bring to $830 million the total focused directly on these markets.
"Small businesses in these markets are critical to growth and economic empowerment for these communities," said Merrill Lynch CEO Stan O'Neal, who spoke today at The Greenlining Institute's annual conference in Los Angeles. "Through our lending capabilities and our people, we are putting the financial and intellectual capital of Wall Street to work for all of the diverse communities of California."
"Our past efforts have succeeded because of our partnership with the Greenlining Institute and the community organizations that work every day to expand opportunities in these under-served markets," Mr. O'Neal said. "This new financial commitment dramatically increases our efforts to put innovative financial expertise to work in these under-served areas. What's more, these are excellent markets where we expect to see significant wealth creation."
The new program includes $490 million in lending for small businesses in under-served areas and $10 million to support efforts in key areas of community development such as financial literacy, supplier diversity, and affordable homeownership.
Merrill Lynch's California Partnership for Economic Achievement began in 1996 as a $77 million pilot program in Los Angeles and Orange counties. In 2000, the firm announced a $159 million commitment and an expansion to most areas of Southern California and all of the San Francisco Bay Area.
"In 1996, Merrill Lynch became the first investment bank in the nation to develop an under-served community investment partnership with local community groups — a unique experiment growing out of a business vision for these communities, outside of any regulatory mandates," said John Gamboa, executive director of The Greenlining Institute.
"Today, we have achieved another historic first: with Merrill Lynch becoming the first investment bank to develop a California-wide small business strategy for ethnically diverse communities. Greenlining believes corporations can find profitable ways to do business in historically under-served areas. Merrill Lynch has proven to Wall Street and to the entire business community that it can be done."
The new initiative will expand beyond Southern California and the San Francisco Bay Area to include the rest of the state, focusing on such areas as Sacramento, the Central Valley and Northern California.
A 2000 report on minority-owned small businesses funded by the Merrill Lynch Foundation found that such businesses are potent forces in the Southern California economy, but often have difficulty gaining access to the financial capital, business networks, and key aspects of business assistance — such as business planning and market development — necessary to expand and create more economic opportunity in their communities.
Garrett Gin, director of Community Development for Merrill Lynch in California, said the California Partnership has exceeded its commitments in the first two phases through the collaboration between Merrill Lynch and the community.
"We have been able to identify excellent opportunities to provide the financing for growing businesses in historically under-served areas," Mr. Gin said. "Though our commitment in the first two phases was about $240 million, we've actually provided more than $330 million in lending and community investment over these first two phases because of the business opportunities identified by our Financial Advisors and Finance Managers, often in partnership with minority business and industry groups."
"California is one of the most diverse states in the country and a great place for Merrill Lynch to advance its commitment to serving local communities and ethnically diverse markets," said Subha V. Barry, head of the Multicultural and Diversified Business Development Group. "We have used our success in California as a model for our efforts to be the preeminent provider of wealth management services in diverse and multicultural markets."
To support the Partnership's efforts, the Merrill Lynch Foundation has funded over $7 million in grants, including a $3.2 million commitment in 2002 for the Investing Pays Off initiative. Through a specially crafted curriculum available at www.volunteer.ml.com, strategic grants to non-profits, volunteer involvement, and a financial plan competition to be announced in Fall 2003, the Investing Pays Off program offers under-served youth worldwide a competitive advantage in the critical areas of business savvy, leadership development, financial education, and entrepreneurship.
"The Merrill Lynch Foundation focuses our support on programs that build a world of increased opportunity for under-served children and youth," said Eddy Bayardelle, FVP and head of Global Philanthropy. "With Investing Pays Off, we seek to promote exciting new long-term partnerships that will result in serving unmet needs, involve volunteers from Merrill Lynch's workforce of 51,000, deliver measurable results and offer replicable models for the benefit of young people and the organizations that serve them."
For more information on Merrill Lynch's California Partnership for Economic Achievement, please visit www.CaliforniaPartnership.ml.com.
Merrill Lynch is one of the world's leading financial management and advisory companies, with offices in 36 countries and total client assets of approximately $1.3 trillion. As an investment bank, it is the top global underwriter of debt and equity securities and a leading strategic advisor to corporations, governments, institutions and individuals worldwide. Through Merrill Lynch Investment Managers, the company is one of the world's largest managers of financial assets. For more information on Merrill Lynch, please visit www.ml.com.
Merrill Lynch provides comprehensive cash management, financing, retirement planning and M&A advisory services to small and midsize businesses. Currently, more than 135,000 of these businesses entrust nearly $120 billion in cash management assets to Merrill Lynch. As of December 2002, Merrill Lynch has provided more than $7.6 billion in financing to small and midsize businesses. For more information on Merrill Lynch Business Financial Services, please visit www.businesscenter.ml.com.
The Greenlining Institute is a California-based, multi-ethnic research, policy and advocacy organization that works on issues of economic development and empowerment for low-income and minority. The Institute is the nonprofit arm of the Greenlining Coalition, a multi-ethnic alliance of 39 community, business and advocacy groups. For more information, please visit www.greenlining.org.
Contact:
Merrill Lynch: Bill Halldin 916.781.0657
whalldin@exchange.ml.com
Greenlining Institute: Bob Gnaizda 415.284.7206
robertg@greenlining.org