Trump’s fraudulent financial statements were key to getting loans, former bank official says
Donald Trump obtained hundreds of millions of dollars in loans using financial statements that a court has since deemed fraudulent, a retired bank official testified Wednesday at the former president’s New York civil fraud trial.
Trump’s statements of financial condition were key to his approval for a $125 million loan in 2011 for his Doral, Florida, golf resort and a $107 million loan in 2012 for his Chicago hotel and condo skyscraper, former Deutsche Bank risk management officer Nicholas Haigh testified.
They also helped Trump secure bigger loans and lower interest rates, said Haigh, who headed the risk group for the bank’s private wealth management unit from 2008 to 2018.
...Deutsche Bank’s rules required Trump to act as a guarantor for the Doral and Chicago loans in addition to putting up the Miami-area resort and Wabash Ave skyscraper
as collateral, meaning he would’ve been obligated to repay the loans if his properties faltered.
Deutsche Bank’s private wealth management unit, which handled the loans,
wouldn’t have approved them without a “strong financial guarantee” from Trump, Haigh said.
Haigh said he reviewed Trump’s financial statements
before approving the loans and, at the time, had no reason to doubt their validity.
The documents portrayed Trump as a wealthy businessman, heavily invested in golf courses and other real estate with strong cash flow and little debt, Haigh said.
Deutsche Bank representatives also met with Trump Organization executives to go over the information, he said.
“I assumed that the representations of the assets and liabilities were broadly accurate,” Haigh said of Trump’s financial statements.
Trump’s 2011 financial statement listed his net worth as $4.3 billion. Haigh said he used that figure to shape a loan condition requiring that Trump, as guarantor, maintain a minimum net worth of $2.5 billion, excluding any value derived from his celebrity.
“As the ultimate decider,
I needed to be comfortable with the terms of the loan, including the covenants that protected the bank,” Haigh said. The $2.5 billion benchmark, he said, was set “to ensure
the bank was protected in adverse market conditions.”...