National Cooperative Bank (NCB), a leading financial services company dedicated to providing banking products to cooperatives nationwide, just completed a $30 million loan for Amalgamated Houses in the Bronx, New York. The country’s oldest limited equity cooperative secured the loan to refinance approximately $8.5 million of existing debt and $19.6 million to bolster its reserves and undertake substantial capital improvements to the property. NCB worked with Fannie Mae in securing the transaction. Edward Howe III, Managing Director of NCB’s New York office, arranged the financing.
Amalgamated Houses was originally sponsored by the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union under the leadership of Sidney Hillman, and was the first to be created by Founding President and Manager Abraham E. Kazan, known as “The father of cooperative housing in the United States.” It continues to be an example of how limited equity cooperatives can flourish in this country, and serves as a model for all moderate income cooperative housing that has followed. The United Housing Foundation, which built tens of thousands of homes for this community, was also created by leaders from the Amalgamated. The cooperative communities created by UHF drew on the experience of the Amalgamated houses.
Similar to the mission of Amalgamated, NCB is also continuing its commitment to being a socially responsible financial institution and its dedication to meeting the needs of the communities it serves. In 2012 alone, the Bank deployed $232 million to initiatives serving low and moderate income communities, a number they hope to increase in the coming year. As part of its support for last year’s United Nations declaration the International Year of the Cooperative, NCB is continuing its efforts to develop concepts that build cooperative awareness in many different fields of business.
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