Donald Trump paid his $175 million court judgment in his New York fraud case with the help of the “king of subprime auto loans,” after the billionaire investor came up with the approach himself.
“I heard he was trying to raise the $460 million bond. I contacted them at the time. We started having a conversation. The bond was downgraded,” billionaire Don Hankey told DailyMail.com.
“So they thanked us for helping us get the bigger band together. So we said goodbye. A few days later they called back and said, ‘Do you want to come back and pay the $175 million bond?’
He referred to a New York appeals court that reduced the amount and gave Trump 10 days to secure bail, after his lawyers said in a filing that it was nearly impossible to obtain an endorsement .
Don Hankey, known as the “King of Subprime Auto Loans,” contacted Trump as the former president sought bail to challenge a court judgment against him. Billionaire Hankey’s firm posted bail on Trump’s $175 million judgment
“It was much easier because he brought in all the cash,” he said. Hankey deviated from an earlier report that said Trump provided collateral in cash and investment-grade bonds.
“He first gave us a list of bonds and we approved the bonds along with some cash as collateral. When the collateral was finally posted, it turned out to be all cash. We have a screenshot of it and it was all cash.”
When asked why Trump didn’t simply pay the price himself, he said the transaction allows Trump to collect interest if the $175 million is invested in a money market or other permitted investment vehicle while it sits in a trust account pending of the profession.
He said he wasn’t concerned about lending to Trump, who went bankrupt decades ago over his Atlantic City casinos.
“If the appeal is denied or we have to come up with cash, with a bond you only have about 24 hours to get the money back,” he said. “If you have real estate, it can take months to liquidate the property.”
He said that during initial talks with Trump intermediaries, he discussed using real estate as collateral — something he said he was willing to do.
“I thought his credit was pretty good,” said Hankey, a Trump donor and Trump supporter who says he did not know the former president personally.
‘That is what we do. We do that in Los Angeles. “We’re working a little bit outside the box,” he said. He said he charged a “very small fee” that he did not want to disclose.
“There’s not a lot of risk involved if he puts the money on the table. It is being held in trust for us,” he said.
“I’m a supporter who loves to help him, and this is what we do at Knight (Specialty Insurance Company). We just do our job,” he said.
“We contacted someone else and said we would do it. That word came back to him.” He said he had been in touch with Trump Organization adviser Alan Garten and received a thank you from Eric Trump when the bond was agreed.
The action came after Trump’s lawyers argued that he could not find an institution willing to support him when he faced a larger $454 million judgment that an appeals court rejected.
Forbes estimates Hankey’s net worth at $7.4 billion, a figure he does not dispute.
He runs an LA-based car service empire called the Hankey Group, which caters to borrowers with bad credit who have yet to find a way to buy a ride.
The appeals court last month gave Trump 10 additional days to secure bond, something he was able to do on Tuesday as he appealed the fraud verdict.
Knight Specialty Insurance Company, one of several divisions of the Hankey Group, provided the bond.
He acquired Midway Ford outright in 1972 and then expanded into lending.
He says the firm “began to carry some of the paper that we couldn’t get a bank to carry. That was in the eighties. We started with just subprime.” He then expanded to other borrowers – with 1.5 million customers nationwide and approximately $15 billion in paper loans.
Hankey said Forbes Monday that he contacted Trump shortly before the appeals court took action.
Judge Arthur Engoron had issued an order requiring Trump to report on his efforts to obtain bail.
The bond relies on cash as collateral. Axos Bank, in which Hankey is one of the top non-institutional investors, lent $100 million to refinance Trump Tower
Trump announced Monday that he had obtained the bond as he appealed the court’s ruling in his New York fraud case
‘I had never met Donald Trump. I had never spoken to him on the phone. I heard he needed a loan or a bond, and this is what we do,” he told Forbes. “Yes, I voted for him in the past, but this is a business deal and this is what we do. “I have never met Donald Trump or spoken to him on the phone,” Hankey said.
He donated $2,700 to Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign along with a string of state parties and $32,400 to the Republican Party in 2013. His wife has also donated to Trump.
Despite his fortune, Hankey does not have a major media presence.
Hankey is also one of the largest non-institutional investors in Axos Bank, Bloomberg News reported. The bank lent Trump $100 million to refinance Trump Tower and another $125 million to refinance his Doral golf course in Florida at a time when the fraud case was scrutinizing his assets, the bank said. disclosure reports.
Hankey told DailyMail.com that he owns about 5 percent of Axos but has “nothing to do with” the Trump Tower refinancing. He was “not involved at all” in the other loans to Doral.
He said he followed Trump’s fraud trial but did not venture an opinion. ‘I don’t even think I should comment. This is what Knight Insurance does and we like to issue bonds,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a Republican or a Democrat, we’re happy to offer our services to people.”
Hanky had previously said that Trump used cash and investment grade bonds as collateral.
That means he is not using his real estate, after claiming the court ruling would force him to offload properties at ‘fire sale’ prices.
Hankey also backed another trophy property, this one on the West Coast: the Bel Air mega house known as the One. His credit on the property, which has 20 bedrooms and 30 bathrooms, reached $100 million in 2022, with a nasty lawsuit in bankruptcy court over the 105,000-square-foot property.
He says his company “gets most of our money back,” including the entire principle of it.
The Hankey Group also includes branches including Westlake Financial Services, Midway Auto Group and North Hollywood Toyota, where buyers can become “pre-qualified” in seconds for vehicles like a 2016 Prius or a 2020 Corolla.
