Guaranty Bancshares Inc., (NASDAQ: GNTY), the parent company of Guaranty Bank & Trust N.A., on Aug. 7 announced that its bank subsidiary has formed a partnership with CaliberCos Inc., a vertically-integrated alternative asset manager and fund sponsor, in an effort to drive investments that will revitalize communities across Texas through real estate developments.
Consistent with the goals of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), Guaranty and Caliber will provide increased affordable housing opportunities by investing in low and moderate income (LMI) neighborhoods. Guaranty is supplying Caliber with capital that Caliber will invest alongside its Caliber Tax-Advantaged Opportunity Zone Fund, LP – combining the Opportunity Zone tax incentive with community reinvestment.
“This is a transformative time in Caliber’s history,” said John Hartman, Chief Investment Officer of Caliber. “As we expand our investment platform across private and public markets, we anticipate that our partnership with Guaranty will continue to evolve and grow in tandem with our initiatives to develop wealth for our investors and the communities we invest in.”
The capital structure consists of $50 million of total funds to deploy into qualified real estate developments. Scottsdale, Arizona-based Caliber will manage the funds as a sidecar to its existing U.S.-based fund platform while focusing its efforts on Texas based markets, such as Austin, Bryan/College Station and Dallas, along with Guaranty. Further, Caliber will be tasked with sourcing appropriate developments, acquiring, and managing those developments, as well as reporting its progress to Guaranty.
Ty Abston, CEO of Guaranty stated, “We are proud to be partnering with Caliber to provide an attractive capital source that will fund Caliber’s initiatives to revitalize low and moderate income communities within the Austin, Bryan/College Station and Dallas markets through their dedicated opportunity zone funds and other real estate centric funds.”
Guaranty Bank & Trust has 31 banking locations across 24 Texas communities located within the East Texas, Dallas/Fort Worth, greater Houston and Central Texas regions of the state. As of June 30, 2021, Guaranty Bancshares Inc. had total assets of $2.93 billion, total loans of $1.89 billion and total deposits of $2.53 billion.