U.S. Department of Treasury CDFI Program Awards New Market Tax Credits To Seedco Financial

Online, February 24, 2011 (Newswire.com) - Seedco Financial Services, Inc., a national Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) today announced that its subsidiary, Empowerment Reinvestment Fund, LLC, has been selected by the U.S. Department of Treasury's Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund to receive $35 million in 2010 tax credits under the New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) Program. The NMTC program provides tax credits to investment vehicles to stimulate economic and community development in low-income communities.

"This is an important program at a critical time as we believe that key investments in communities with high rates of poverty and unemployment can create jobs, inspire further reinvestment and help to revitalize those communities most impacted by the economic crisis," said Edwin Hong, Interim President of Seedco Financial.

Seedco Financial will use the New Markets Tax Credit allocation to invest in projects and organizations nation-wide that stimulate small business development, lead to large-scale job creation, catalyze community development and support minority-serving institutions. This is the fifth award since 2002 for the organization which has utilized its previous awards to invest in projects such as the rehabilitation of a 100,000 square foot high-tech business incubator in Detroit, MI, the reconstruction of a movie theatre into a mixed-use facility and charter school in Brooklyn, NY, and the creation of a food processing center in Bessemer City, NC.

"We are very pleased to receive this award," said Kenneth Brezenoff, Senior Vice President of New Markets Tax Credits at Seedco Financial. "It represents an endorsement of the effectiveness of our New Markets Tax Credits program and our overall mission to support projects that create catalytic economic growth in communities at risk. One such example is a construction project we funded in Fresno, CA in 2008, to build an outpatient health clinic for a community with a 54% poverty rate and a 24% unemployment rate. These are the type of projects which provide needed jobs and services to underserved neighborhoods and in which we seek to invest," said Mr. Brezenoff.