{"id":196442,"date":"2023-11-30T08:45:57","date_gmt":"2023-11-30T08:45:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tokenstalk.info\/?p=196442"},"modified":"2023-11-30T08:45:58","modified_gmt":"2023-11-30T08:45:58","slug":"deutsche-bank-exec-called-trump-a-whale-while-courting-his-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tokenstalk.info\/world-news\/deutsche-bank-exec-called-trump-a-whale-while-courting-his-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Deutsche Bank exec called Trump a &apos;whale&apos; while courting his business"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>Deutsche Bank&#8217;s eagerness to land Trump as a &#8216;whale&#8217; client is revealed in New York fraud trial &#8211; but the lender privately estimated his net worth at half the $4.2B he claimed in 2011<\/h1>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>&#8216;We are whale hunting,&#8217; banker Rosemary Vrablic wrote colleagues in 2011<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>New York court hears how bank eagerly courted Trump as wealthy client<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Trump&#8217;s dealings with Deutsche Bank are central to New York fraud civil case\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Deutsche Bank was eager to land &#8216;whale&#8217;\u00a0Donald Trump\u00a0as a client, and eagerly cultivated a relationship that grew from $13,000 worth of revenue to $6 million in two years, according to documents presented Wednesday at the former president&#8217;s civil fraud trial.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;We are whale hunting,&#8217; then-bank managing director Rosemary Vrablic wrote colleagues in November 2011, as she began to forge ties to Trump and his family.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Deutsche Bank&#8217;s dealings with Trump are a key issue in New York Attorney General Letitia James&#8217; lawsuit, which accuses Trump, his company and some executives of hoodwinking lenders and insurers by grossly inflating statements of his asset values.<\/p>\n<p>The defendants deny any wrongdoing. They have sought to show that the bank felt delighted, not deceived, by Trump and courted his business.<\/p>\n<p>In 2011, the family was looking for a loan to buy the Doral golf resort near Miami, and Vrablic was eager to land them as clients.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>One executive at the bank said that Trump had one of the &#8216;strongest personal balance sheets we have seen&#8217; &#8212; although other documents presented at trial show the lender internally discounted Trump&#8217;s $4.2 billion estimate of his own net worth to just $2.4 billion when considering the Doral loan<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/30\/05\/78406981-12808379-image-a-29_1701323605245.jpg\" height=\"792\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Former Deutsche Bank\u00a0managing director Rosemary Vrablic is seen with Jared Kushner. In 2011, she called Trump a &#8216;whale&#8217; as she sought to land his business for the bank<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/30\/05\/78406975-12808379-image-a-30_1701323696251.jpg\" height=\"357\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Deutsche Bank&#8217;s dealings with Trump are a key issue in New York Attorney General Letitia James&#8217; fraud lawsuit<\/p>\n<p>Over the next three years, Vrablic&#8217;s connection to the Trumps yielded loans for the Doral project, then two others in\u00a0Chicago and Washington, as well as multimillion-dollar deposits in the bank.<\/p>\n<p>Her division&#8217;s revenue from Trump business shot up from about $13,000 in 2011 to a projected $6 million in 2013, according to a bank document prepared for the then-co-chairman, Anshu Jain, before a lunch with Trump in early 2013.<\/p>\n<p>The briefing document suggested &#8216;key asks&#8217; for Jain to make: &#8216;Obtain more deposits and investment management assets,&#8217; and &#8216;strategically discuss leveraging Mr. Trump&#8217;s personal and professional network within the real estate industry in NY&#8217; for the bank&#8217;s benefit.<\/p>\n<p>And how did it go?<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;It was a very, very nice, productive lunch,&#8217; Vrablic recalled on the stand.<\/p>\n<p>Behind the scenes, she told a colleague at the time in an email: &#8216;It went great. Donald was low key and demure. Unbelievable. The conversation was fantastic. Not sure he could do it again for a second meeting but hey &#8230; miracles can happen.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Adding that the two were planning to golf together that spring, she wrote: &#8216;I bet the real D shows up for that one.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>The next year, her direct boss went to lunch with Trump to thank him and &#8216;ask whether we can work on other opportunities with them,&#8217; according to a document for that meeting.<\/p>\n<p>James maintains that Trump&#8217;s allegedly inflated financial statements were critical to netting his company the Deutsche Bank loans at favorable rates, saving him many millions of dollars in interest.<\/p>\n<p>Trump says the financial statements actually underestimated his wealth and that a disclaimer on them absolves him of liability for any problematic figures.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/30\/05\/78406977-12808379-image-a-31_1701323775468.jpg\" height=\"416\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>AG\u00a0James maintains that Trump&#8217;s allegedly inflated financial statements were critical to netting his company the Deutsche Bank loans at favorable rates<\/p>\n<p>Trump, the current front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, claims that James, a Democrat, is trying to harm his prospects of returning to the White House.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;There was no defaults, no &#8216;nothing,&#8221; he wrote Wednesday on his Truth Social platform, calling the case &#8216;rigged&#8217; and &#8216;victimless.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Trump personally guaranteed the loans at issue &#8211; standard practice for lending by Deutsche Bank\u00b4s division that caters to rich individuals, Vrablic said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The deals came with conditions about Trump&#8217;s net worth and, sometimes, liquidity, and they often required annual submissions of his financial statements.<\/p>\n<p>Other current and former Deutsche Bank executives have testified that while they expected the information to be accurate, they came up with their own numbers.<\/p>\n<p>Documents show the bank sliced Trump&#8217;s $4.2 billion estimate of his net worth to $2.4 billion when considering the Doral loan, for example.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Asked Wednesday whether the cut had concerned her, Vrablic said that if the bank\u00b4s credit experts &#8216;were comfortable with it, I would be comfortable with it.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>The $125 million loan went ahead, with one banker writing in an email that Trump had &#8216;among the strongest personal balance sheets we have seen.&#8217;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A top executive agreed to sign off but insisted on an &#8216;iron clad&#8217; guarantee from Trump.<\/p>\n<p>Trump provided it, Vrablic said Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/11\/30\/06\/78407215-12808379-image-a-32_1701324084643.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Trump is questioned next to Judge Arthur Engoron, during the Trump Organization civil fraud trial in New York State Supreme Court earlier this month<\/p>\n<p>Over the years, she and colleagues spoke enthusiastically among themselves about the potential for building on Deutsche Bank&#8217;s Trump ties.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The bankers envisioned offering him estate planning services, presenting him investment options and netting more clients through word-of-mouth &#8211; &#8216;given the circles this family travels in, we expect to be introduced to the wealthiest people on the planet,&#8217; Vrablic wrote in a 2011 email.<\/p>\n<p>She advocated within the bank for lending to Trump Organization ventures. In a 2012 email to then-Executive Vice President Ivanka Trump, Vrablic promised to ensure that a Deutsche Bank lending executive knew &#8216;how important you and your family\u00b4s business have become to the bank.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Eventually, though, the bank started saying no. In 2016, when Donald Trump was on the campaign trail and his company sought a loan for its golf course in Turnberry, Scotland, the bank decided &#8216;to maintain neutrality to any political situation and not lend money to a highly politically exposed person,&#8217; Vrablic explained in an email at the time to Ivanka Trump.<\/p>\n<p>Vrablic testified Wednesday that the bank was wary of &#8216;the increased exposure, scrutiny&#8217; surrounding a potential president and concluded &#8216;that it was not appropriate to go up in exposure.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Judge Arthur Engoron will decide the verdict. He ruled before the trial that Trump and other defendants engaged in fraud and he ordered that a receiver take control of some of Trump\u00b4s properties, putting their future oversight in question. An appeals court has put that order on hold for now.<\/p>\n<p>The trial concerns remaining claims of conspiracy, insurance fraud and falsifying business records. James is seeking more than $300 million in penalties and a ban on Trump doing business in New York.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-12808379\/Deutsche-Bank-Trump-whale-fraud-trial.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Deutsche Bank&#8217;s eagerness to land Trump as a &#8216;whale&#8217; client is revealed in New York&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":196441,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28134],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Deutsche Bank exec called Trump a &amp;apos;whale&amp;apos; while courting his business - Tokens Talk<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/tokenstalk.info\/world-news\/deutsche-bank-exec-called-trump-a-whale-while-courting-his-business\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Deutsche Bank exec called Trump a &amp;apos;whale&amp;apos; 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