Gifts to Moore School
First Citizens Bank will donate $250,000 to Moore School
A $250,000 donation to renovate a 130-student classroom in the Close-Hipp Building of the Moore School of Business has been announced by First Citizens Bank and Trust Company, Inc. The gift will be matched by Darla Moore, USC alumna and South Carolina native, effectively doubling the value of the gift.
The renovated classroom will be named after First Citizens, which is headquartered in Columbia.
“The Moore School of Business is critical to the development of the business climate in our state and region,” said Jim Apple, chairman and CEO of the bank, which has more than 160 offices in South Carolina and eastern Georgia. “As a Columbia-headquartered company, we have benefited greatly from the flow of USC graduates joining our team. In a sense, we saw an investment in the Moore School as being an investment in the future of our company.”
First Citizens is now the second-largest bank based in South Carolina. It is experiencing a growth spurt of its own, having acquired the People’s Community Bank of South Carolina (based in Aiken) in May 2005 and Summit National Bank, the subsidiary of Greenville, South Carolina-based Summit Financial Corporation, in July 2005.
In addition, First Citizens is opening a new headquarters in downtown Columbia. “With First Citizens investing more than $50 million in a new headquarters in downtown Columbia and with the [University of South Carolina’s] plans for the Innovista research district, the Moore School is one more major piece of the revitalization of the combined City Center and USC campus for the 21st century,” Apple said.
“In the new economy, it will be important that USC and its corporate partners find ways to collaborate, and we certainly relish having a major university business program and research campus in our backyard.”
First Citizens Bancorporation, Inc. is the parent company of First Citizens Bank and Trust Company, Inc. and The Exchange Bank of South Carolina, Inc. First Citizens was founded in 1913 in Columbia as the Homestead Bank.
Photo: Jim Apple (right), chairman and CEO, with Dean Joel Smith in front of the new First Citizens Bank in Columbia, S.C.