Tag: Deutsche Bank

Two Big Banks Sever Ties With Trump Organization Over Capitol Riot

President Donald Trump may not see the error of his ways but some of the United States’ largest banks are making it known they strongly disagree with his actions.

According to The New York Times, Deutsche Bank is distancing itself from the president amid the aftermath of the deadly riots that erupted at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Although Trump owes the bank approximately $300 million, the paper reports that the German financial institution wants no future business dealings with the president or his companies. 

In addition to Deutsche Bank, New York’s Signature Bank also released a statement confirming the closure of Trump’s personal bank accounts while calling for the lame-duck president to resign from his post. The bank has also vowed not to conduct any further business with any Congressional members who actively worked to overturn the outcome of the presidential election and block the electoral college certification. Continue reading.

Deutsche Bank looking to dump Trump after election and may seize his assets if he cannot repay debts: report

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The German multinational investment lender Deutsche Bank may be looking to sever its business relationship with President Donald Trump and drop approximately $340 million of the president’s debt after the election, according to a new report published by Reuters. 

A Deutsche Bank management committee that focuses on upholding the lender’s reputation and risk factors in North America has been discussing various ways to distance from the Trump Organization, Trump’s parent company currently being run by his two sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump.

It has been reported that Trump’s debt with the bank consists of three loans that will be coming due over the next two years. While the loans are current on payments, there are still multiple concerns about the bank’s relationship with Trump and the bank may be considering ways to drop the debt by seeking to “sell or demand repayment” of the loan, according to Business Insider. Continue reading.

Deutsche Bank Turned Over Trump’s Financial Records To Manhattan District Attorney

Deutsche Bank, the German financial powerhouse that loaned hundreds of millions of dollars to the Trump Organization when other banks shunned that company, has turned over records of its transactions subpoenaed by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, according to the New York Times.

District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr., has sought the president’s personal and corporate tax records in court, without revealing much about the alleged crimes under investigation, although he is know to be looking into hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal.

Vance’s prosecutors justified the extensive demand for Trump’s records before a judge in New York state Supreme Court last Monday by citing reports of “extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Truomp Organization.”. Continue reading.

Trump’s Bank Was Subpoenaed by N.Y. Prosecutors in Criminal Inquiry

New York Times logoThe subpoena, sent to Deutsche Bank, suggests that the inquiry into President Trump’s business practices is more wide-ranging than previously known.

The New York prosecutors who are seeking President Trump’s tax records have also subpoenaed his longtime lender, a sign that their criminal investigation into Mr. Trump’s business practices is more wide-ranging than previously known.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office issued the subpoena last year to Deutsche Bank, which has been Mr. Trump’s primary lender since the late 1990s, seeking financial records that he and his company provided to the bank, according to four people familiar with the inquiry.

The criminal investigation initially appeared to be focused on hush-money payments made in 2016 to two women who have said they had affairs with Mr. Trump. Continue reading.

Deutsche Bank Opens Review Into Personal Banker to Trump and Kushner

New York Times logoThe bank will examine a 2013 transaction between the banker, Rosemary Vrablic, and a company part-owned by Jared Kushner.

Deutsche Bank has opened an internal investigation into the longtime personal banker of President Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, over a 2013 real estate transaction between the banker and a company part-owned by Mr. Kushner.

In June 2013, the banker, Rosemary Vrablic, and two of her Deutsche Bank colleagues purchased a Park Avenue apartment for about $1.5 million from a company called Bergel 715 Associates, according to New York property records.

Mr. Kushner, a senior adviser to the president, disclosed in an annual personal financial report late Friday that he and his wife, Ivanka Trump, had received $1 million to $5 million last year from Bergel 715. A person familiar with Mr. Kushner’s finances, who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly, said he held an ownership stake in the entity at the time of the transaction with Ms. Vrablic. Continue reading.

‘Blinded by greed’: Financial reporter examines Deutche Bank’s disturbing relationship with Donald Trump

AlterNet logoThe banking sector in general has received more than its share of scathing critiques since the economic crash of September 2008 and the Great Recession, but no bank has been more controversial in the Trump era than Germany’s Deutsche Bank. In his new book, “Dark Towers: Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump, and an Epic Trail of Destruction,” journalist David Enrich (known for his finance reporting for the New York Times) delves into President Trump’s relationship with Deutsche. And Enrich discusses the book in a Q&A interview with the German weekly Der Spiegel (which means “The Mirror” in German).

Speaking to Der Spiegel’s Alexander Sarovic, Enrich explained that Deutsche Bank “has been involved in really serious scandals all over the world, ranging from money laundering and manipulating markets to violating international sanctions — from bribing public officials to deceiving governments and regulators.” And according to Enrich, Deutsche helped Trump win the United States’ presidential election in 2016.

“Donald Trump was completely off limits, unbankable with the mainstream financial institutions for many years because he had defaulted over and over again — and then, Deutsche Bank comes in,” Enrich recalls. “It was trying to make a name for itself in the United States market…. They almost single-handedly enabled him to bounce back from all his business failures and keep building, which Donald Trump then used very successfully to portray himself as a successful businessman and real estate mogul. That was one of the foundations for his successful White House campaign.” Continue reading.

‘The million-dollar question’: Finance editor breaks down DOJ’s bizarre abandonment of a Russian money laundering case against Deutsche bank

AlterNet logoWhen other banks weren’t making generous loans to Donald Trump and the Trump Organization, Deutsche Bank was. David Enrich, finance editor of the New York Times and author of the new book, “Dark Towers: Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump and an Epic Trail of Destruction,” discussed Deutsche’s relationship Trump and a seemingly abandoned U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) case against the bank during a Monday night, February 17 appearance on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show.”

Maddow, noting that Trump “probably owes hundreds of millions of dollars to this one institution,” asked Enrich “whatever happened to” a possible U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) case against Deutsche Bank that involved a “Russian money laundering scandal.” And Enrich responded, “That is the million-dollar question.”

Enrich explained that during the final months of the Obama Administration, the DOJ was “close” to bringing a “criminal case” against Deutsche Bank “for its involvement in Russian money laundering” — but after Trump became president, the case fell by the wayside.  Continue reading.

New book reveals Deutsche Bank lawyer appalled by decision to keep Trump as a client: ‘What the hell are we doing?’

AlterNet logoA new book written by New York Times reporter David Enrich reveals that Deutsche Bank’s own general counsel was appalled that the bank kept Trump as a client, as he kept defaulting on debts even after all other banks had cut him off from funding.

A review of the book published in the Times reveals that Deutsche Bank was so desperate to have Trump as a high-profile American client that its private banking division kept lending him money even after its real estate division cut him off for failing to repay his loans.

“Deutsche’s brass was so in thrall to Trump’s celebrity, and so eager to expand in America, one division lent $48 million to cancel the debt on a Chicago skyscraper — a debt Trump had defaulted on with another wing of the same bank,” the review explains. “They bought his pitch as voters would. In what could serve as a requiem for the country’s lost innocence, the general counsel said, ‘What the hell are we doing lending money to a guy like this?’”  Continue reading.

The Money Behind Trump’s Money

New York Times logoOne Day in early 2017, Mike Offit went to the Yale Club in Manhattan for a lunch hosted by a group called Business Executives for National Security. Offit, who has a craggy face and shoulder-­length hair, had spent much of his career in banking, but that had ended nearly two decades earlier. Since then, he had puttered around the outskirts of finance, dabbled in journalism and even published a novel about a pair of murders at a fictional German-­owned Wall Street bank that bore a striking resemblance to the one that he worked for until 1998: ­Deutsche Bank.

These days, Offit had time on his hands, which is how he found himself at the Yale Club that afternoon. Slanting winter sunlight illuminated the white-­columned walls of the club’s dining room. Offit was chatting with an American military officer about weaponry when his iPhone buzzed. He saw an email from the White House Executive Office of the President. How strange, Offit thought.

The message contained a PDF file: a scanned printout of an email he had sent Donald Trump several months earlier, in the waning days of the presidential campaign. Offit had known Trump for decades. At ­Deutsche Bank, he had lined up huge loans to finance Trump’s construction and renovation of landmark Manhattan skyscrapers, at a time when the default-­prone real estate developer and casino magnate was no longer able to get loans from most mainstream financial institutions. The two men stayed in touch afterward. Offit’s 2014 book, “Nothing Personal,” even featured a blurb from Trump: “Michael Offit offers a colorful insight into how the big money is made — and/or taken — on Wall Street.” Continue reading.

Stunning new report details how Deutsche Bank’s ‘very long’ and ‘complicated’ relationship with Trump cemented its role ‘as a reckless institution’

AlterNet logoWhether President Donald Trump was being investigated by Democrat-led committees in the U.S. House of Representatives or by former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office, a name that has often come up in connection with the president is Deutsche Bank — an institution known for dealing with businesses that other large banks shy away from. And Trump’s extensive dealings with Deutsche Bank are the focus of an in-depth article by journalist David Enrich for the New York Times.

Trump’s relationship with Deutsche Bank, Enrich explains, is a “very long, very complicated” one that goes back to 1998.

“Over the course of two decades, the bank lent him more than $2 billion — so much that by the time he was elected, ­Deutsche Bank was by far his biggest creditor,” Enrich reports. “Against all odds, Trump paid back most of what he owed the bank.” Continue reading.