Why Black Wealth Matters

kind of lead in UM Bloomberg News. We've been doing a lot of reporting about diversity within the financial community on Wall Street and a recent story said that today not a single chief executive officer of a major US

bank is black. UM, and I do want to get into, you know, wealth creation among the black community, because one of the things that certainly has been coming out, certainly in the light of George Floyd in Minneapolis, is again talking about the inequalities when it comes to blacks versus white in our our community, and a lot of it has to do potentially with the financial community, an access to wealth creation and access to banking. So talk to

me a little bit about that and what you're seeing. Well, from my perspective, I believes that access to capital for minority of people that look like me is systemic. UM. It's been allowed for a very long time, and when you block us out or deny us access to capital,

it just makes it a a little bit more difficult. When you look at from the other side, we are the largest consumers in the United States out of all the various nationalities, so we have a lot to contribute um to business and we do a lot of the work, but unfortunately we're just not being given the opportunity to get capital. So one of the things that we tried to do is demystified UM access to capital and what that actually means and what it looks like, and how

to actually get it for people of color. So what's the transmission mechanism that's broken that's preventing that from happening right now? Basically the whole are trying to fix. The whole we're trying to fix is very simple. We have a lot of legislation that's been done many years ago before you and I UM and we weren't included. People

who look like we weren't included. And when they began to try to include us, they had people who were making policies that were I will use the words not sensitive to who we were and what our needs were, because they didn't want us to live next door to them. They didn't want us to have access to capital because they felt like we would be competing for the same

capital that they were trying to achieve. And that's why you have approximately thirteen thousand publicly traded companies and you have fewer than fifteen black how managing um publicly traded company And you would say, well, how could that even be in the day's age. Well, so talk to us a little bit about that and what's happened and why it hasn't opened up more. Well, it hasn't opened up more because they don't want it to open up. Now. Who they are is very simple. The establishment has a

set of rules together. And it's not the bank's fault. It's not even current policymakers fault. But at some point these rules have to be revisited that they are actually inclusive. UM. So that we included because if you want minorities have access to capital. UM, you can get minorities to have access to capital B by regulating very simple. You know, you give us we don't want to hand out we do want to hand up. So if you could just

simply imagine helping someone up to create jobs. According to the U. S Government, most jobs are created by people who look like themselves. So I'm an employer, I'm hiring someone that looks like me, and that's why unemployment amongst

blacks are so so high, especially amongst black males. So I can totally see then how you're connecting all the dots right, because if you don't have minority owned, black owned businesses, then you're not going to have the people who hire other people who look like them, which then creates more wealth in the community. Getting the government to do anything right now on this except for rhetoric, I

just I can't imagine that's going to happen. So you're actually putting your money where your mouth is and you're actually trying to help support that. What kind of concrete steps have you been able to take to help give access to capital um to black owned businesses. Well, we've find a group of various investors together and we helped to fund different deals and transactions. Recently, we helped to fund a lab out of Georgia Energy company Technology Company.

So we go through the whole gaming We don't go looking to borrow, mine or anything to that nature. We use our own resources and we rely on our own network UM to do this. And so what we look for is companies that have between three to five million dollars that are very much overlooked and a poise to actually grow, but they lack the capital and sometimes even the strategicness to actually develop and grow the company to

take it to the next level. So we come in and we provide the capital and some strategious planning to help them to grow and scale their business. Solomon help me understand though, how you get to that three million dollar thresholds, Like, what about the people under that? How do you help them? Well, basically what we do is we help provide to provide a strategic planning for their merger's, acquisitions and just strategies on how to grow and scale

their companies. And then we work with a group of investors UM that will loan them money and things of that nature. I've been doing this for about thirty something

years being an entrepreneur and access in clientance. So again we just try to domestify what that actually looks like and brain companies in minority companies, people that look like me, and just help them to by strategic planning and by getting them access to capital and arranging for funding so that they can grow and normally what that will allow

them to do. It helps to provide them with the working tools that they need for that strategic planning, for exit strategy out because as we know, before, the largest investment that most Americans had, especially African Americans with their homes, and now that we have even less homeownership than we did previously, the largest investment that they have is their savings.

And African Americans are saving far less than their counterparts of whites and things of that nature, so we have less disposable income, we have less income, and so trying to teach them, one business at a time how to make the shift and redirect some of their resources into their business so that they can also hire people that

look like there and help to grow the economy. You know you asked earlier about the black CEOs, um bankers and things of that nature, Well, we need to create more black owned businesses so that the black banks can have more deposits because typically um they don't see a lot of deposits and they're so heavily regulated, and we have some challenges um and meeting some of the different regulatory requirements because of the lack of capital, because we're

always struggling financially. So I hear what you're saying, but I do wonder and going back to don't you need all of the major big banks on board to also be supportive to really kind of open up, um, you know, the access to capital for black Americans. Well, I would like to UM say, yes you do. But really what you need is the federal government to sit back and say, Okay, we realize that it has been an unfair and unjust

playing film. So now we're going to bring in some regulations requiring the banks to make various loans, um and things of that nature. You know, back in the day, we used to have a program called Score where you had a lot of former CEOs of companies that would actually help you and you've worked through the Chamber of Commerce and things of that nature. You know, local rotary club that would help you on your business plan and

your business strategies and things of that nature. So you gotta read called blacks don't have access to a lot of other successful black people that's in business. Um, constantly. We're looking at the athletes, we're looking at movie stars things of that nature, but we're not looking at a lot of black men and women who are successful in business that has been doing it okay. And so that's what we have to show them, is that it can

be done. Let that be the dream. I remember when I started out years ago, I was always told, oh, you want to be the CEO of the one right in the check. I don't say that anymore. I don't want to be the one right to check. So the one right to check is a target, especially if you're a black CEO. Okay, you are a target for a regulatory and you know. Look, I was on the board a three publicly traded companies as an officer, as a director and required to raise money other three companies. We

cornered the market. In two we created the fifth largest minority energy company in the United States. We took our i T intellectual property, and we cornered the market and smart home technology with the security systems and everything of that nature. So it can be done, but work is required. And the only way you get a chance and opportunity to do the work is unless you have the access to the capital, and it is a problem that can be it's it's not something that won't work. I think

Senator Corey Bookers said it very simply. If you were to give us approximately fifteen billion dollars to actually fund African American companies, then what will happen is we will be able to contribute approximately one point five trillion dollars to the local economy. That is huge, especially especially when

you think that we are the largest consumers. We make up roughly as part of the gd We make up roughly three point five cent um seven percent of the g D. Key that's huge, and that's as a consumer. So we just need to shift our thinking right right now. It's um an interesting perspective and I think an important one certainly, you know, with the background and backdrop of the last few months and trying to understand, uh, the inequalities that continue in our evasive in our society. Solomon,

thank you so much. Solomon Ali, chief executive officer of nd Our Energy Group. He is also head of the advisory firm Solomon R. C. Ali Corporation. Joining us on the phone from North Carolina,