FINANCE
Trump’s longtime banker at Deutsche Bank resigns
President Trump’s longtime banker at Deutsche Bank, who ensured that the German lender gave his company hundreds of millions of dollars in loans, is leaving the bank. Rosemary Vrablic, managing director and senior banker in asset management at Deutsche Bank, recently submitted her resignation, which the bank has accepted, according to a bank spokesman, Daniel Hunter. The reasons for the sudden resignation of Vrablic and long-term colleague Dominic Scalzi were not clear. Deutsche Bank opened an internal review in August of a 2013 real estate transaction between Vrablic and Scalzi and a company partly owned by Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and Vrablic client. Vrablic and Scalzi joined Deutsche Bank from Bank of America in 2006. In 2011, Vrablic landed a prominent new client: Trump, who was largely banned from the mainstream banking world for decades due to his tendency to default on credit. With the approval of her bosses, Vrablic agreed to a series of loans totaling well over $ 300 million for his newly acquired Doral golf resort in Florida, for his troubled skyscraper in Chicago, and for the conversion of the old Washington post office into Building to luxury hotel. When Trump became president, his relationship with Deutsche Bank was scrutinized by regulators, prosecutors and Congressional Democrats. The relationship between Trump and the Deutsche Bank is under investigation in Congress, in civil and criminal matters. In New York, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance has been investigating whether Trump committed financial crimes while trying to get loans from Deutsche Bank. – NEW YORK TIMES
TRADE
UK faced food shipping crisis due to travel ban
Deutsche Lufthansa AG will be transporting fresh produce to Great Britain on Wednesday for fear of bottlenecks during the Christmas season, even as France prepares to reopen the main route of the truck ferry with its neighbor. The German airline will fly 80 tons of food to Doncaster-Sheffield Airport, a spokesman said on Tuesday. While the European Union called for transport to the UK to be resumed, Dover’s key port remained confused with trucks unable to drive a second day to Calais. France, which was disconnected after a faster-spreading COVID-19 strain emerged in the UK, told the EU that the route should reopen by midnight, according to people familiar with the matter. According to Lufthansa, the emergency flight will carry unspecified “perishable goods” from Frankfurt, a major European center for food distribution that has close ties to producers in Italy, France and Spain as well as the Netherlands, where food is grown under glass during the growing season. UK Food and Drink Federation head Ian Wright previously told Bloomberg TV that if the ports crisis were not resolved, there would be a shortage of food sourced from outside the UK, such as citrus fruits and some green vegetables. J Sainsbury Plc warned Monday that the chaos in Dover could leave shelves for items like lettuce, other lettuce leaves, cauliflower and broccoli, and fruit. Tesco Plc, the UK’s largest retailer, urged customers not to panic and said it had good stocks, including food sourced from France. – BLOOMBERG NEWS
SALE
Locked in a toy store is more than a dream for this family
It’s like taking a look into Santa’s workshop. A New York family had an extraordinary vacation experience – they stayed at the FAO Schwarz toy store in midtown Manhattan overlooking the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. The special night was born out of a collaboration between the well-known toy store and Airbnb, which listed the special event earlier this month. FAO Schwarz set up accommodations in their shop, with a living room with a view of the huge tree, a sleeping area and a dining table. The happy family had free rein, including the huge entry-level keyboard familiar to many from the movie Big. They also do some shopping. Alluding to the pandemic, the family had to prove residency in New York City in order not to have a need for travel and members had to live in the same household. Airbnb promised to clean the room according to their protocols. – RELATED PRESS
SALE
Louis Vuitton’s leather yoga mat was described as “extremely insensitive” by Hindus
A Hindu activist asks the luxury goods manufacturer Louis Vuitton to pull a yoga mat, which is partly made of cowhide, and calls it “extremely insensitive”. Rajan Zed, president of the Universal Society of Hinduism, said in a statement Tuesday that the mat was “highly inappropriate” for practicing Hindus who consider cows to be sacred symbols of life. “The scenario of doing yoga – a profound, sacred, and ancient discipline introduced and nurtured by Hinduism – on a mat made from a killed cow is painful,” Zed said. Paris-based Louis Vuitton did not immediately respond to comments on Tuesday. The company’s yoga mat, made primarily of canvas with leather detailing and a cowhide shoulder strap, costs $ 2,390 online. In an email, Zed urged Louis Vuitton executives to apologize and abide by the company’s Code of Conduct, which includes commitments to ethical and social responsibility. The company “shouldn’t be concerned with religious appropriation, sacrilege, ridicule of serious spiritual practices, and ridicule of entire communities,” he said. The Universal Society of Hinduism, based in Reno, Nevada, recently ran several campaigns addressing the commercial abuse of sacred symbols. – RELATED PRESS
TAXES
Dementia defense advanced in large tax fraud case
Texas software mogul Robert Brockman has an unusual defense against charges that he used an arsenal of code names, undetectable phones, and an “evidence eliminator” to sack $ 2 billion in the largest tax fraud case in US history. Brockman attorneys, 79, claim that even though he ran a billion dollar software company until last month, he has dementia so advanced he cannot stand trial. Prosecutors warn that Brockman could develop a defense against infirmity to avoid justice. Brockman faces a 39-count charge accusing him of tax evasion, money laundering and other crimes that involve the vast fortune he made by investing in Vista Equity Partners and secretly hiding in offshore tax havens. Weeks after his October 1st indictment, he stepped down from his long-standing position as chief executive officer of Reynolds and Reynolds, a giant in the dealership management software market. His attorneys now claim that Brockman’s intellectual capacity has steadily declined over the past two years and that he scored an 87 on an IQ test – well below the expected level of a man who holds multiple patents and has historically great importance to the details of his business has laid. They say he is mentally incapable of supporting his defense. The prosecutors suspect that he has a “motive for Malinger” and that “his claims deserve a healthy skepticism”. – BLOOMBERG NEWS
TECHNOLOGY
Musk says Apple didn’t want to talk about buying Tesla 60 billion years ago
Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook refused to hold a meeting years ago to discuss the acquisition of Tesla Inc., Elon Musk said on Twitter Tuesday. Tesla CEO Musk said in a tweet that he reached out to Apple during the “darkest days” of his company’s Model 3 development to discuss a possible deal. Musk said he planned to discuss the possibility of selling Tesla to Apple for a tenth of its current value, which suggests a valuation of about $ 60 billion. Production of the Model 3 began in 2017, around the same time Apple decided to move from developing a full-fledged Tesla competitor to an underlying self-driving car system. In recent years, Apple has hired a number of ex-Tesla executives who specialize in powertrain, interior vehicle, and self-drive technology. This shows that the company is considering entering the market again. An Apple spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. – BLOOMBERG NEWS