May 3, 2001 — One potential obstacle to Jeffrey Prosser's acquisition of the Chase Manhattan Bank branches in the Virgin Islands has been removed with the announcement that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has extended its deadline for Prosser's Virgin Islands Community Bank to consummate the purchase.
The original deadline of May 7 has now been moved to Sept. 7.
Michael Dow, VICB president, told the Virgin Islands Daily News, another Prosser property, that his bank could meet the new deadline. Dow had said earlier that he expected the purchase to be ratified by July.
On April 23, the Source, in an investigative story by David S. North, listed the soon-to-expire FDIC deadline as one of four potential obstacles to communications and banking magnate Prosser's intention to purchase the Chase branches and merge them into his VICB. See "Prosser's bank merger faces many obstacles" for that earlier story.
In a related development, the U.S. Small Business Administration has given one of its "bank of the year" awards to VICB for the third time in four years, in recognition of the bank's record of lending to local businesses.
Although the FDIC peppered its Nov. 7, 2000, approval of the Chase deal with warnings and conditions, it also praised VICB for its involvement in the community.
