SPRINGFIELD, Ill., April 24 (UPI) -- Broadway Bank, a Chicago community bank founded by the father of Senate hopeful Alexi Giannoulias, was seized by federal regulators Friday.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. rejected an appeal from the bank's CEO, Alexi's brother Demetris Giannoulias, for more time after the 30-year-old bank failed to raise $85 million in capital, the Chicago Tribune reported.
U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., is seeking to use the bank's collapse against Giannoulias, who boasted of the institution's success as "the most profitable bank in Illinois" while he was running for state treasurer in 2006.
Giannoulias has since distanced himself from the bank and some of its questionable real estate dealings, which brought about its undercapitalization when the housing bubble burst in 2008.
"At the time I left (in 2005), according to every independent analysis, the bank was one of the best performing in Illinois," Giannoulias said in a statement Friday, saying Broadway Bank was hit by an "economic tsunami" along with hundreds of other banks across the country.
"Unlike some larger financial firms, there was no bailout for my father's bank," Giannoulias said.
