The California billionaire who underwrote Donald Trump’s $175 million (£138 million) civil fraud bond has said he was “happy to do it” for a “modest fee”.
Don Hankey, 80, a Trump supporter and the chairman of Knight Specialty Insurance, said the deal was “put together very quickly”.
Mr Hankey, who made his $7.4 billion fortune through financing car loans to buyers with weaker credit scores, reached out to the Trump Organisation with the intention of helping to finance the full $464 million bond.
When Mr Trump insisted he had “a lot of money” after he was handed an eleventh-hour lifeline by an appeals court cutting the bond amount by more than half, Mr Hankey assumed his services weren’t needed.
“We thought our negotiations were finished,” he told the Washington Post. “And we were thanked by the Trump Organisation.”
But Mr Trump’s team soon “called back and asked us if we would put up the bond for $175 million”, he said.
A bond is essentially a placeholder, meant to guarantee payment if the judgment is upheld.
If that happens, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee will have to pay the state the whole sum.
Mr Hankey said he could possibly have scraped together the $464 million deal with a combination of cash, bonds and real estate as collateral.
“I wasn’t comfortable, but I would have been happy to sit down and try to work it out. There would be a little more risk on my end, so maybe there would be a little more price involved,” he said.
He told the Los Angeles Times Mr Trump had funded the bond entirely with cash and the margin was “very small” and they “gave him a good rate”.
Mr Hankey said he and his wife previously donated to Mr Trump’s presidential campaigns in the past and plan to support him again in 2024.
He said it was a business deal, rather than political. He has not spoken to Mr Trump directly but Eric Trump called to thank him after the bond was posted.
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