In a Jan. 8 letter to shareholders, Miners Exchange Bank (MEB) President and CEO Charles Ward announced the bank is selling all outstanding shares to Salvosa Group, of Winston-Salem, NC for $49.87 per share in cash. Salvosa will become the bank’s parent holding company. The transaction is unanimously supported by the MEB board, Ward said.
Ward told shareholders the transaction would close sometime in Q2, and that, “a shareholders’ meeting is being planned for the late first/early second quarter of 2021, at which time you will be invited to vote for the transaction.”
Ward also said the bank’s customers, “will experience continuity with the same bankers and operations in the same branch locations following the closing of the transaction.”
According to the FDIC, Miners Exchange Bank has $86 million in assets and $73 million in deposits. In addition to its Coeburn, Va., headquarters it operates branches in five other southwest Virginia communities and Johnson City, Tenn.
Salvosa is described in the letter as, “an organizational group of community bankers.” Salvosa’s SEC filings indicate that while the company was formed in Virginia in late 2020, it is headquartered in the same Winston-Salem building which had been home to the proposed-but-never-chartered Community Bank of the Carolinas (CBC) a year ago. CBC announced in June 2020 it had failed to meet its capital funding goals and was ending its charter bid, choosing instead to acquire or partner with existing financial institutions. Salvosa and CBC share the same COO, Jim Monroe.
