{"id":385344,"date":"2010-03-03T16:38:01","date_gmt":"2010-03-03T21:38:01","guid":{"rendered":"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c60fd53ef01310f5adab9970c"},"modified":"2010-03-03T17:43:44","modified_gmt":"2010-03-03T22:43:44","slug":"giannoulias-seeks-to-blunt-damage-says-family-bank-likely-to-fail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/385344","title":{"rendered":"Giannoulias seeks to blunt damage, says family bank likely to fail"},"content":{"rendered":"

Posted by John Chase<\/em> at 3:33 p.m.; updated at 4:44 p.m. with audio link<\/strong><\/p>\n

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias sought to\u00a0blunt a potentially damaging political issue today about questions regarding his involvement in his family\u2019s struggling bank, which he said he expects will likely fail in the coming months.<\/p>\n

But questions were still left unanswered following a more than 70-minute meeting with the Chicago Tribune\u2019s editorial board. Among them were exactly what Giannoulias knew about convicted bookmaker Michael Giorango\u2019s criminal past when he received loans from Broadway Bank, and how many of the bank’s troubled loans were made\u00a0while\u00a0Giannoulias was\u00a0working there.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Giannoulias also sought to explain nearly $70 million the bank paid out in dividends to him and his family in recent years, saying $29 million of that was taken out of the bank to diversify the family\u2019s investments. <\/p>\n

Giannoulias said he didn\u2019t see the bank\u2019s financial situation<\/a> getting better as the election progresses.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s quite likely that the bank will fail,\u201d he said. \u201cI hope I’m wrong. I hope they can raise the capital to keep the bank going and they\u2019re fighting hard to do so but it\u2019s tough out there for a lot of banks of which Broadway Bank is not immune to these same challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n

Listen to the audio, courtesy of WGN radio, by clicking here<\/a>. <\/p>\n

He said he would be willing to help the bank but also estimated that any money he could provide would be \u201cunder $1 million.\u201d The bank must raise $85 million by April, according to a consent order with state and federal regulators.<\/p>\n

The one-term state treasurer won the Democratic nomination last month and is facing U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk in the November election. The bank and its troubles have continued to follow Giannoulias since he first entered the political scene in 2006. <\/p>\n

Giannoulias said he would accept \u201cmy share of the responsibility\u201d for the bank\u2019s failures while he served as a loan officer at Broadway between 2002 and 2006. He said while he was there he invested too much in loans involving commercial real estate, which has tanked in recent years.<\/p>\n

Kirk and national Republicans have questioned why Giannoulias and his family accepted the nearly $70 million in dividend payouts in 2007 and 2008 \u2013 at the same time the economy was beginning to struggle. Giannoulias in November had said the payout was the result of helping settle his father\u2019s estate. His father, Alexis Giannoulias, died in June 2006. <\/p>\n

In his appearance today, Giannoulias added new details, saying that $40 million went to pay off income taxes for bank shareholders \u2013 which include him and his family members \u2013 and that $29 million was paid out so he and his family could better diversify their economic portfolios.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a way of helping to manage my father\u2019s estate there was a diversification as per (financial) advisors,\u201d he said. \u201cThis idea or notion that the bank would actually take $29 million out to put itself in a worse position doesn\u2019t make any sense. It\u2019s completely counter-intuitive.\u201d<\/p>\n

In answering questions about Broadway\u2019s loans to Giorango, Giannoulias said Giorango had a relationship at the bank before he worked there full-time after his graduation from law school. But in offering his latest explanation of his contact with Giorango, Giannoulias today at first contended he was unaware of Giorango\u2019s criminal history. <\/p>\n

That contradicted Giannoulias’ comments in 2006 to the Tribune, in which he acknowledged knowing Giorango had a criminal background. When reminded today of his past comments, the treasurer said he would have to check his past statements before saying any more because he doesn’t want to give inconsistent answers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Posted by John Chase at 3:33 p.m.; updated at 4:44 p.m. with audio link Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias sought to\u00a0blunt a potentially damaging political issue today about questions regarding his involvement in his family\u2019s struggling bank, which he said he expects will likely fail in the coming months. But questions were still left […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3992,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-385344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3992"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385344\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}