Big German Bank, Key to Trump’s Finances, Faces New Scrutiny
Although Deutsche Bank recently landed in legal trouble for laundering money for Russian entities — paying more than $600 million in penalties to New York
and British regulators — there is no indication of a Russian connection to Mr. Trump’s loans or accounts at Deutsche Bank, people briefed on the matter said.
Additionally, the New York regulators recently requested information related to the hundreds of millions in loans Deutsche Bank’s private wealth
management division provided Mr. Trump, one of the people said, paying particular attention to personal guarantees he made to obtain the loans.
Mr. Trump received a loan from Deutsche Bank’s wealth management unit to pay off the debt he owed
the bank’s real estate lending division, according to two people briefed on the transaction.
While there is no formal investigation of the bank —
and personal guarantees are often required when people receive big loans from their wealth managers — the New York regulators have questioned whether the guarantee could create problems for Deutsche Bank should Mr. Trump fail to pay his debts.
The size of the loans — totaling about $300 million — is somewhat unusual by Wall Street standards, according to former
and current Deutsche Bank executives and wealth managers at other Wall Street firms.
A few years after Mr. Trump sued the bank in 2008, he moved his business from the bank’s commercial real estate lending division to
its private wealth division, where executives were more willing to deal with him, according to the people briefed on the matter.
Banking regulators are reviewing hundreds of millions of dollars in loans made to Mr. Trump’s businesses through Deutsche Bank’s private wealth management
unit, which caters to an ultrarich clientele, according to three people briefed on the review who were not authorized to speak publicly.
