Billy Webster's Financial Web and What It Means for South Carolina's Most Vulnerable Communities
- Javar Juarez
- 19 minutes ago
- 15 min read
By Javar Juarez | CUBNSC — New Progressive Journal
I drove to Jefferson, South Carolina, this week.
Not because anyone sent me. Not because a press release landed in my inbox. Because I had been sitting with a set of documents — public records, corporate filings, a Statement of Economic Interests — and something in them told me I needed to see the ground before I wrote a single word.
Kershaw Highway runs from Kershaw County into Chesterfield County, north toward Cheraw, and along that corridor you see something that books and documentaries try to describe but rarely capture. It is the kind of poverty that has been so long in place that the landscape has absorbed it. Buildings in disrepair that were once something. Roads carrying the memory of commerce that left decades ago. And in between, scattered like evidence of a life trying to persist, people going about their business with the kind of quiet dignity that doesn't make the news.
I pulled into downtown Jefferson. Population 753. I sat down at Emily's Cafe and had some of the most extraordinary banana pudding I have ever tasted, served by people who, though we did not look alike and may not vote alike, extended every measure of the southern hospitality that this state is known for.
I walked through the historic cemetery and read names carved into stone dating back to 1852. I saw charming houses along the downtown stretch, new brick construction with large lots and modern facades, and evidence of infrastructure investment — good things, real things.
And I also saw the crumbling historic buildings screaming for revitalization, the isolation of a county that does not make it onto the maps that matter in Columbia or Washington.
Then I drove to 2965 Hilton Road.
The Brewer Gold Mine sits approximately 1.5 miles west of Jefferson's town center, on the western border of Chesterfield County. It is a 1,000-acre property. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency designated it a Superfund site in 2005 — the result of years of contamination, including a 1990 tailings dam failure that released more than ten million gallons of cyanide solution into Little Fork Creek, which flows into the Lynches River approximately two miles downstream.
The original mining company walked away from the site in 1999. The federal government and the state of South Carolina have been managing and paying for the cleanup ever since.
As recently as fiscal year 2024, South Carolina was making annual payments of $74,665 to maintain the groundwater treatment system.
A Toronto-listed junior mining company called Carolina Rush Corporation — four employees, a market capitalization of approximately $4.7 million — holds an exclusive exploration option on the Brewer property.
In September 2025, Carolina Rush entered into an earn-in agreement with OceanaGold Corporation, a C$12 billion international gold producer that operates the Haile Gold Mine 13 kilometers away. Under the agreement, OceanaGold can earn up to 80% interest in the Brewer project by spending $20 million through 2030.
Deep drilling commenced January 5, 2026.
The residents of Jefferson — where one in three people live below the poverty line, where roughly 32% of residents are Black, where several households to the west of the mine site draw their water from private wells — were not party to the deals that brought the drills back. No community advisory group exists at this site. The people of Jefferson did not have a seat at that table.
And the man seeking the Democratic nomination to govern South Carolina — the man who came into my community last week asking for votes — sits on the board of Carolina Rush Corporation. It says so on his own public ethics filing.
Who Billy Webster Is, and What He Says
William M. 'Billy' Webster IV, 68, of Greenville, entered the Democratic gubernatorial primary on March 25, 2026, becoming the third Democrat to file in a race where no Democrat has won the governorship since 1998. He chose a Columbia Bojangles restaurant as his announcement stage — a nod to the family franchise business where he says his career began, breading chicken on the 4 a.m. shift — and while posing for photographs making a Cajun Filet Biscuit, declared himself the only candidate in the field prepared and experienced for the job.
His campaign website is built around the language of protection. He promises to "protect the unique spaces that make this state great." He promises clean water. He says South Carolina's farmers and families are "getting squeezed out" and that he will stand up for them. He says he will forgo the governor's salary — donating the $106,078 to first responders — because he has enough money and can't be bought.
He calls himself a servant. He says he does, not talks.
The public record has a different account to offer.
Advance America: What He Built, Who It Hurt, and What the Courts Said
Webster co-founded Advance America Cash Advance Centers, Inc., in Spartanburg, South Carolina, in 1997. He served as its president and CEO until 2011, when it was sold to Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas Pliego's Grupo Elektra for $780 million.
At its peak under his leadership, the company operated more than 2,500 locations nationwide under multiple brand names — including National Cash Advance, Check Advance, First American Cash Advance, First American Loans, Purpose Financial, and Purpose Money — and generated $1.7 billion in annual revenue.
It was the largest payday lending company in the United States.
I want to be precise about what that means, because Webster has spent years attempting to soften the description. Advance America's core product was a short-term loan — typically two weeks, secured by a post-dated check — carrying an annual percentage rate that routinely exceeded 300%.
Under Webster's leadership, the company grew by planting its storefronts in communities that the traditional banking system had abandoned or redlined. The research is unambiguous about which communities those were.
According to data from the Center for Responsible Lending, African Americans take out payday loans at three times the rate of non-Hispanic whites. Payday lenders have been documented to be 2.4 times more concentrated in African American and Latino communities, even after controlling for income.
A study of North Carolina found that African American neighborhoods had three times as many payday lending storefronts per capita as white neighborhoods. A poll by the Center for Responsible Lending found that Black consumers are twice as likely as white consumers to live within a mile of a payday lender.
A University of Houston Law Center study found that 77% of advertisements at the physical locations of payday lenders targeted racial minority groups.
The communities most affected by redlining are the same communities saturated by payday lenders today. Advance America was among the industry leaders in building that saturation.
I live in one of those communities, along the Broad River corridor. There are more payday and subprime lending storefronts in my neighborhood than in most others. I know what Advance America's product did to my neighbors. I watched it happen. And last week, the man who built that product came into my community asking for my vote.
The legal record is equally clear.
North Carolina. Advance America agreed to pay $18.75 million to more than 140,000 North Carolina consumers, resolving a 2004 class action alleging it charged interest rates as high as 450% in violation of state law. The company had already been forced to cease lending in North Carolina by the state attorney general. Public Justice Senior Attorney Paul Bland, one of the plaintiffs' lawyers, described it as "by far the largest settlement that any class of consumers has won from any payday lender in the United States.
South Carolina. Advance America was one of 17 payday lenders that agreed in 2010 to settle a South Carolina class action arising from allegations that the companies made loans to borrowers they knew could not afford to repay, trapping them in repeat debt. Eligible South Carolina borrowers could receive roughly $100 each. Webster's company was sued right here — in the state where he now wants to govern.
Pennsylvania. In 2015, Advance America reached an $8 million settlement with the Pennsylvania Attorney General for illegal payday loans carrying interest rates of 368%.
Federal. On November 20, 2012, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued an $18.5 million consent order against Advance America — one of the agency's first major enforcement actions. Violations included illegally threatening consumers with criminal prosecution, making false collection threats in states where payday loans were banned, and failing to accurately report consumer data to credit bureaus.
The company Webster built is still operating today under its new name, Purpose Financial. An $800 loan from Advance America currently requires total repayment of $2,221.79 — $92.59 per month over 24 months. That is $1,422 in interest on $800 borrowed.
As of February 2026, the CFPB had 1,066 consumer complaints on file. Complaint volume in 2025 was the highest since 2014.
In 2023, after Webster's departure, the company suffered a data breach at the hands of the cybercriminal group BlackBasta. The company waited more than six months to notify victims. A $7.75 million class action settlement was reached. The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina.
Webster describes Advance America on his campaign website as "a cheaper, more transparent alternative to traditional banking which solved a real problem for working families."
The federal government, the attorneys general of multiple states, and the courts of this nation said something different.
The Statement of Economic Interests: A Financial Map
When candidates file for public office in South Carolina, they are required by law to submit a Statement of Economic Interests to the State Ethics Commission. The purpose is straightforward: to allow voters to gauge whether the person seeking their trust has financial entanglements that might compromise their judgment or create conflicts of interest in the exercise of public power.
Billy Webster's SEI contains the following entries:
Carolina Rush Corp — Director
GCRED — Investment
GDLC — Investment
GDLCU — Investment
Golub BDC, Inc. — Investment
Golub GBDC4, Inc. — Investment
GPIF — Investment
These are not random holdings. They form two distinct and significant financial networks, and every voter in the Democratic primary deserves to understand what they are.
Carolina Rush Corporation: The Superfund Director
The notation next to Carolina Rush Corporation is not "Investment." It is "Director."
That distinction matters enormously. A director is not a passive shareholder. A director exercises fiduciary governance authority over a company's decisions — its strategy, its financial commitments, its management. When Billy Webster lists Carolina Rush Corporation under "Director" on his Statement of Economic Interests, he is disclosing an active governance role, not a casual financial stake.
Carolina Rush Corporation is the company currently drilling into the Brewer Gold Mine Superfund site in Chesterfield County. It is listed on the TSX Venture Exchange in Canada. It has four employees. Its earn-in agreement with OceanaGold — worth up to $20 million through 2030 — represents the largest financial development at the Brewer site since the original mining company walked away in 1999 and left the state to clean up the mess.
The Governor of South Carolina exercises executive authority over SCDES — the South Carolina Department of Environmental Services — the agency that manages the state's Superfund cost-share obligations, issues water discharge permits, and negotiates with EPA over remediation timelines at sites like Brewer. South Carolina has been paying $74,665 per year to maintain the groundwater treatment system at Brewer.
The state faces potential additional cost-share obligations for a new treatment system.
If Billy Webster wins the Democratic primary on June 9, wins the general election on November 3, and takes office in January 2027, he will serve as governor for the entirety of Phase 1 of the OceanaGold exploration program — during which OceanaGold must spend $8 million to earn a 50% interest in the Brewer project.
Every regulatory decision South Carolina's executive branch makes about the Brewer site during that window will have direct financial consequences for a company in which the governor has disclosed a directorship.
This is not a theoretical conflict. This is a textbook conflict.
Webster has campaigned on protecting South Carolina's natural spaces and clean water. The Brewer Gold Mine's contamination history — the 1990 cyanide spill, the acid rock drainage into Little Fork Creek, the decades of EPA-managed remediation — is the documented consequence of precisely the kind of extraction activity his company is now advancing.
I want to be fair: he did not cause the 1990 dam failure. That predates Carolina Rush and any connection he has to the site. But a candidate does not need to have caused the original spill to face a legitimate conflict of interest. The question is not historical blame.
The question is current governance.
That question has not surfaced publicly in the coverage of this race. The directorship does not appear in Webster's campaign biography, his website, his public interviews, or his announcement materials. The only place it exists in the public record is on his ethics filing.
The Golub Capital Ecosystem: Six Vehicles, One Network
The remaining entries on Webster's SEI — GCRED, GDLC, GDLCU, Golub BDC, Golub GBDC4, and GPIF — are not unrelated investments. They are six distinct vehicles all managed by a single investment adviser: GC Advisors LLC, the advisory arm of Golub Capital.
Golub Capital BDC, Inc. is the flagship publicly traded vehicle, listed on NASDAQ. According to its corporate governance page, Webster has been a member of its board of directors since 2010. That is 16 consecutive years of embeddedness inside the Golub Capital financial infrastructure.
The other five vehicles — Golub Capital Private Credit Fund (GCRED), Golub Capital Direct Lending Corporation (GDLC), Golub Capital Direct Lending Unlevered Corporation (GDLCU), Golub Capital BDC 4 (GBDC4), and Golub Capital Private Income Fund (GPIF) — are all managed by the same GC Advisors LLC. They are non-publicly traded, accredited-investor vehicles requiring net worth of at least $250,000. They invest primarily in first-lien senior secured loans to middle market companies backed by private equity.
Here is why this matters for South Carolina.
The governor of this state is its chief economic development officer. South Carolina competes aggressively — through tax incentives, regulatory accommodations, and public investment — to attract private equity-backed companies to relocate, expand, and invest in the state. The Golub Capital ecosystem is one of the nation's leading lenders to exactly that category of company — private equity-sponsored middle market businesses.
When a company backed by a private equity firm considers coming to South Carolina and receives a package of state incentives approved by the governor, there is a meaningful and non-trivial probability that the company carries debt from one of the six Golub Capital vehicles in which Webster holds financial interests.
That is not paranoia. That is arithmetic.
Public records also show that Lawrence and David Golub, the principals of Golub Capital, have given more than $1.4 million to Republican and conservative causes and candidates since 2020, according to reporting by the Washington Post. Webster does not control their giving. But Democratic primary voters deserve to know the character of the financial ecosystem they are being asked to extend governing power to.
The Federal Campaign Finance Record: Access, Not Ideology
Federal Election Commission records reviewed by CUBNSC show William M. Webster IV has given more than $758,000 to political candidates and committees across nearly four decades. The giving is bipartisan. The pattern is deliberate.
His largest single recipient is the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — $180,800. He gave $30,800 to the Obama Victory Fund, $43,500 to various DNC entities, and $25,000 to Unite the Country, the Biden Super PAC. He gave $6,400 to Jim Clyburn, $8,000 to the Democratic Party of South Carolina, and $16,800 to Sherrod Brown. These are real Democratic commitments.
But he also gave $35,500 across multiple campaigns and committees to Lindsey Graham — South Carolina's senior Republican senator and one of the most powerful Republicans in American politics. He gave $8,300 to Tim Scott, $7,500 to Trey Gowdy, $6,400 to Jim DeMint, $3,300 to Nikki Haley for President, $3,000 to Catherine Templeton for Congress. He gave to Bob Corker. He gave to Jeb Hensarling.
Jim Clyburn and Lindsey Graham do not agree on much. But they share something: Billy Webster's money.
When the most powerful Democrat and the most powerful Republican in South Carolina both carry your contributions, you are not a partisan. You are a stakeholder.
His industry giving is equally revealing. He gave $20,000 to the Community Financial Services Association of America Political Action Committee — the Washington lobbying arm of the payday lending industry, an organization he helped found and lead. He gave $10,000 to Advance America's own corporate political action committee. He gave $35,000 to the LKQ Corporation Employee Good Government Fund — another company where he held a board seat.
Taken together: $65,000 in documented industry PAC giving directly tied to his personal business interests and board relationships.
The FEC records also show something worth noting about his October 2025 filing. Just months before announcing his Democratic gubernatorial campaign, Webster gave to the Friends of Mark Warner and Dr. Annie Andrews for Senate — Democrats. His listed employer on those federal forms: Not Employed and Advance America, respectively.
He was still identifying himself as connected to Advance America to the federal government while preparing to run for governor as a candidate distancing himself from the payday lending legacy.
This is not confusion. The picture that emerges across four decades of giving is not a man who is politically confused. It is a man who has maintained systematic access to whoever holds power — Democratic leadership, Republican power brokers, and the lobbying infrastructure of his own industry — regardless of which party governed.
He did not give because he believed. He gave because he needed access.
That is not inherently illegal. It is inherently relevant when the man is asking Democratic primary voters to trust him as a champion of the working poor.
Jefferson, South Carolina: The Ground Beneath the Story
I want to come back to where I started.
Jefferson, South Carolina, has approximately 753 people and a poverty rate above 21%. Among its residents, 32% are Black. The median household income is $40,625. Just 13% of adults hold a bachelor's degree.
The largest employment sectors are health care, administrative support and waste management, and other services.
This is not a finance corridor.
It is not a boom town.
It is a rural community in a rural county — Chesterfield, where 20% of residents live below the poverty line and 30% of children live in poverty — that has absorbed extraction for two centuries and received very little in return.
The people I met at Emily's Cafe did not know who I was. They did not know what I was looking into. They were kind to me in the way that people in small towns often are to strangers who walk in, sit down, and treat them like human beings. I ate banana pudding and thought about what it means to come from somewhere, to build a life in a place, and to watch the decisions of the powerful made far away ripple through your water, your land, your children's futures.
The Brewer Gold Mine has been a part of Jefferson's story since 1828 — first as a source of modest prosperity, then as a source of contamination, then as a site of government-managed remediation that has cost South Carolina taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now it is a site of renewed extraction interest, with a Canadian company holding the option and a Toronto-listed gold producer funding the drilling — a company with mines on three continents — under an agreement that runs through 2030.
What This Is Not, and What It Is
I want to be clear about the purpose of this reporting.
There is nothing wrong with wealth. There is nothing wrong with being successful in business. There is nothing wrong with having built something from the ground up and profiting from it. None of that is the issue.
The issue is how you built it, who paid the price, and whether the conflicts you carry should be disclosed before you ask people to give you governing power over their lives.
Billy Webster built one of the nation's largest payday lending operations, headquartered in Spartanburg, South Carolina, that was forced to settle lawsuits in multiple states for charging illegal interest rates to low-income borrowers — disproportionately Black and Brown borrowers.
He lobbied in Washington to prevent federal regulation of that industry through the Community Financial Services Association, an organization he helped found.
He now sits on the board of a Toronto-listed mining company that is drilling into an EPA Superfund site in one of South Carolina's poorest counties.
He has undisclosed financial interests across six vehicles of one of the nation's largest private credit firms, whose principals have given heavily to Republican causes while Webster campaigns as a Democrat.
He has not publicly discussed the Carolina Rush directorship. He has not publicly reconciled his environmental campaign message with his financial stake in active extraction at Brewer.
He has not explained how he would manage the conflicts between his financial interests and his executive authority over SCDES if he were governor.
Those are questions.
They are legitimate questions.
They deserve answers before June 9.
The people of Jefferson, South Carolina, deserve those answers.
The people along the Broad River corridor — where the map shows more than a dozen payday and subprime lenders clustered in a single stretch of community, including storefronts operating under brand names that Advance America itself used — deserve those answers.
The Democratic voters of this state who are being asked to send this man to the Governor's Mansion deserve those answers.
And I, as someone who lives in that corridor, who drives past those storefronts everyday, who knows what they have taken from this community, am asking.
Javar Juarez is an investigative journalist, writer, and publisher for CUBNSC — New Progressive Journal, an independent investigative news outlet covering South Carolina politics, civil rights, and community affairs. He holds a regional leadership position within the A. Philip Randolph Institute (APRI) and is active in civic advocacy across the state.
Editor's note: This piece contains original investigative reporting based on public records reviewed by CUBNSC, including federal campaign finance filings, South Carolina State Ethics Commission disclosures, EPA Superfund documentation, and corporate filings. It also reflects the author's analysis and perspective as a journalist and community member.
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