Signature Bank’s headquarters in Manhattan. Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesA go-to bank for the Trumps is being investigated
Signature Bank is less than two decades old. It’s a small, relatively unglamorous player. But it’s a go-to lender for President Trump and his extended family, and now New York regulators are investigating some of its loans.
Emily Flitter and Jesse Drucker of the NYT explain how the bank — which has interactions with the Trump and Kushner families, as well as Michael Cohen, who is under criminal investigation — attracted scrutiny. Of particular interest are Signature’s credit lines to the Kushners:
The agency is now looking into whether Signature lent money to real estate developers — including the Kushner family’s business, Kushner Companies — knowing they planned to use abusive tactics to push out low-rent tenants and then charge more, according to two people familiar with the review. It is focused on whether Signature’s loans were overly risky and violated laws intended to prevent predatory behavior.
Elsewhere in banking: Barclays said that the U.K.’s Serious Fraud Office is trying to reinstate charges over its capital-raising in 2008. UBS reported a profit boost from its investment bank, but warned of trade-war troubles ahead.
____________________________
Today’s DealBook Briefing was written by Andrew Ross Sorkin in New York, and Jamie Condliffe and Amie Tsang in London.
____________________________
China’s currency helps it weather the trade war
The value of the renminbi has fallen over 7 percent against the dollar since mid-April. That makes Chinese exports cheaper to foreign buyers — handy when President Trump’s tariffs push up their prices in America.Just good luck? Unlikely. The Chinese authorities promised not to weaken the renminbi to fight tariffs. But the currency does not trade freely: It must fall within a range set — and steadily lowered — by the central bank.Peter Eavis of the NYT suggests, however, that devaluation could have side effects for China, potentially slowing its economy.Maybe that’s a reason it announced measures yesterday to encourage domestic spending, including tax cuts and infrastructure bonds.
Elsewhere in trade: Some Trump supporters hurt by tariffs still back the president. But the Department of Commerce has a backlog of tariff exemption requests. And here’s how zero-tariff trading worked for Caterpillar.
Google’s answer to the $5.1 billion question
Alphabet is taking last week’s E.U. antitrust penalty in its stride. Google’s parent company announced its earnings yesterday, with revenue up 26 percent to $32.7 billion. It has absorbed the cost of the fine, it said, and still made $3.2 billion in its latest quarter. (It put a 2017 E.U. fine of $2.7 billion through its books in the same quarter last year, posting a $3.5 billion profit.)Google still has to address the Android antitrust issues behind the fine. But it gave no indication that the E.U.’s demands would hurt its business. No wonder Alphabet’s stock rose 3.5 percent in after-hours trading overnight.