CHICAGO, Nov. 16 (UPI) -- Chicago's failed Broadway Bank was done in by going too far astray and getting in too deep in commercial real estate, a federal report Tuesday concluded.
However, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. report on the cause of the Giannoulias family bank's failure shed little new light on the matter, Crain's Chicago Business reported.
The report had become an issue when its release was postponed past Election Day, as Alexi Giannoulias was running for the U.S. Senate in Illinois.
The report found that at the end of 2007, the bank had 60 percent of its total lending tied up in loans outside the Chicago area, with most of them to real estate developers and investors in New York City and Florida, Crain's said.
The FDIC said the bank loaned out too much to too few customers. By the time the bank failed last spring, $93.5 million of its losses were in 15 loans to just 10 borrowers, the report said.
Crain's said Broadway had applied to the Treasury Department in January 2009 for a $33.7 million bailout but was turned down.
Giannoulias, the Democratic nominee, lost to Republican Rep. Mark Kirk.
