Embattled Illinois Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias continues to take fire for his questionable business ethics – this time for doing business with a French bank known for financing the Iranian energy secter.
The Weekly Standard today ran a piece, saying that Giannoulias’ dealings with the French investment bank Natixis were “disturbing”. This comes on the heels of revelations about his role in funding convicted organized crime figures through his family owned Broadway Bank, and the arrest of one of Giannoulias’ top donors for fraud as he tried to flee the country.
From The Weekly Standard:
Alexi Giannoulias is no stranger to controversial business relationships: As chief loan officer at his family’s Broadway Bank, the Illinois Democrat running for President Obama’s old U.S. Senate seat authorized loans to convicted organized crime leaders like Michael “Jaws” Giorango (a pimp and bookmaker) and Demitri Stavropoulos (an illegal gambling operator). Giannoulias also serviced loans for convicted felon Tony Rezko.
And, just last week, a Chicago businessman who contributed $115,000 to Giannoulias’s campaign and received millions in loans from Broadway Bank was arrested on bank fraud charges as he attempted to flee the country.
Giannoulias, currently the state treasurer of Illinois, has some disturbing, if indirect, business connections to Iran.
Although several legislative efforts in Congress are currently in the works to apply more sanctions to Iran, and although Giannoulias has called Iran “the greatest single threat to peace in the Middle East,” when it comes to his personal finances, however, Giannoulias does not apply the same standards.
Giannoulias owns stock in his family’s Giannoulias Enterprises, a limited partnership that owns several properties in Chicago. Giannoulias’s brother, Demetris, serves as the president.
In April 2007, Giannoulias Enterprises refinanced its real estate portfolio, taking out a $21.5 million, 10-year loan on six properties – four of them being the locations of the family’s Broadway Bank. With all the banks in the world to choose from, Giannoulias Enterprises selected the French investment bank Natixis – an institution with a long and public history of doing business in Iran.
