Private equity firm with ties to Kushner asks Trump administration to relax rules on loan program: report

A co-founder of Apollo Global Management, a private equity firm with financial ties to White House adviser Jared Kushner, asked the Trump administration to ease provisions in the stimulus bill to benefit their company, according to an email obtained by NBC News. 

NBC reported that the email was sent by Apollo’s co-founder, Mark Rowan, according to a source close to Kushner. The source said there was “nothing remarkable” about the email that was sent to the White House adviser. 

Unlike the dozens of other companies Kushner receives proposals from, Apollo made a $184 million loan in 2017 to Kushner Companies, the real estate company in which Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, retains an interest.

Rowan and his firm made a recommendation about a $100 billion loan program announced by the Federal Reserve to backstop lenders and investors, asking them to fix their requirements so their higher-risk loans can qualify. The loan program is an effort to get cash to flow into the financial system amid the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.  

According to the news source, Apollo Global Management does not qualify for the lending program, they are “higher risk and lower rated.” 

“There has been no MORAL HAZARD. We have a totally unique situation,” the email read. The phrase is an apparent nod at the 2008 financial crisis, in which critics called it a “moral hazard” to bail out the banks who made bad investments, according to the report from NBC. 

On Friday, Bloomberg reported that bank executives who were concerned about the $349 billion emergency small business program created in the $2.2 trillion coronavirus stimulus bill passed last week reached out to Trump’s daughter and senior adviser Ivanka Trump as they tried to negotiate higher interest rates.

The executives questioned the Paycheck Protection Program, which provides generous loans to small businesses with the caveat that they use at least 75 percent to pay their employees.