First National parent gets TARP funding

By Josh Flory knoxnews.com

KNOXVILLE — Moneytree Corp., the Lenoir City-based parent company of First National Bank, has received $9.5 million under the Treasury Department’s Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Under TARP’s Capital Purchase Program, the government buys preferred shares from participating lenders, who pay a dividend to the government.

Bank president David Allen said Tuesday that they filed an application in the fall, and said he and the company’s board initially assumed they would reject the money. “But the more we looked at it, the more we talked about it, we just didn’t see it that way at all. We saw it as, if we rejected it, we’d be rejecting $10 million for this community.”