When Glenn Harvey took over as president of Los Angeles' Broadway Federal Bank in April of last year, he brought more than his two decades of experience to the $284 million-asset thrift.
By leveraging the connections he established while at Comerica Inc., he quickly landed deals to extend financing to a slew of professional sports franchises, including the National Basketball Association's Golden State Warriors, the National Hockey League's Minnesota Wild, the Los Angeles Sparks of the Women's National Basketball Association, and, most recently, Chivas USA of Major League Soccer.
Today, the sports lending division that Mr. Harvey started at Broadway Federal 10 months ago holds $10 million of loans, he said.
"What this does, I think, is provide a nice modular supplement to our core business of real estate lending," he said. "And … if you put a marketing hat on, there are some phenomenal relationships for the little Broadway Federal Bank to kind of hang its hat alongside."
As of Sept. 30, roughly 88% of Broadway's $230 million of loans were in commercial and multifamily real estate, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
Sam Sarpong, the thrift's chief financial officer, said the sports division helps Broadway distinguish itself from other Los Angeles-area banks and thrifts.
"We face a lot of competition here," Mr. Sarpong said. "And if you can identify yourself with some type of niche, you can get business that way."
Mr. Harvey's ties to Broadway Federal, the oldest and largest African-American-owned financial institution headquartered west of the Mississippi, span more than half a century. His grandfather was one of the original investors in Broadway, which was established in 1947 to serve minority communities that had been denied access to capital. And Mr. Harvey worked as a teller at Broadway before joining what was then Citicorp in 1986.
Mr. Harvey's involvement with professional sports franchises began in 2002, when he started Comerica's sports lending division from the Detroit company's Beverly Hills office.
"They're phenomenal credits," he said. "This has been one of the few sectors that … in my 20 years that - I've got to touch wood here - hasn't had a credit that's crashed and burned."
He said the contacts that emerge from these types of deals are equally important.
Through its $3.25 million loan to Chivas USA Soccer, Mr. Harvey, who is 46, met Javier Leon, the chief executive of Chivas USA Enterprises LLC. Mr. Leon will soon become a member of Broadway Federal's board of directors, Mr. Harvey said.
"We think that having that relationship and having Javier come and join our board will be helpful to us, because we have a large Latino footprint," he said.
Mr. Harvey has also started a wealth management division and helped Broadway re-enter the single-family mortgage market.
He hopes that Broadway's historic ties with the community will help its new ventures.
"We're certainly not the Johnny-come-latelies," he said. "It's just a matter of us reminding people about the brand, not necessarily introducing people to the brand."
