A US-based financial services and bank holding company. Its subsidiary Synovus Bank has provided credit and loans to private prison corporation CoreCivic.
Synovus Financial Corp. is a financial services and bank holding company headquartered in Columbus, Georgia. Synovus conducts banking operations through its subsidiary, Synovus Bank. As of 2021, Synovus Bank operated 289 branches throughout Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee, employed 5,247 people, and reported an annual revenue of $506 million.
Synovus has been identified as one of the major financial institutions supporting private prisons and immigrant detention companies. Synovus Bank is a member of a syndicate of banks that has extended hundreds of millions of dollars in revolving lines of credit and term loans to CoreCivic, one of the largest private prison and immigrant detention companies in the U.S. CoreCivic relies on banks and financial institutions to fund its operations and expansion into additional carceral industries.
In 2018, CoreCivic entered into a $1 billion credit agreement with a syndicate of banks that included Bank of America, Citizens Bank, Fifth Third Bank, First Tennessee Bank (now First Horizon Bank), JPMorgan Chase, Pinnacle Bank, PNC Bank, Regions Bank, SunTrust Bank (now Truist Financial Corporation), and Synovus Bank. Replacing CoreCivic's previous $900 million credit facility, this agreement consists of an $800 million revolving line of credit and a $200 million term loan. Synovus Bank, acting as a lender in the deal, committed $20 million and $5 million, respectively, to CoreCivic's revolving line of credit and term loan. The agreement is set to expire in 2023.
As of October 2021, Synovus has made no public statement indicating that it will sever its business relations with CoreCivic.