“Fifth Third Bancorp claims Ahmed Zayat concealed a mortality insurance claim for multiple Grade 1 winner Thorn Song last summer in order to hide $2,750,000 in proceeds that he should have paid to the bank. Zayat Stables owned Thorn Song, who was pulled up in the Eddie Read Handicap (G1) on July 25 at Del Mar after bolting to the outside rail in the first turn… Fifth Third said it made multiple inquiries into the whereabouts and well-being of the Unbridled’s Song horse… Fifth Third said the concealed insurance payment is evidence that a receiver should be appointed to oversee Zayat Stables' 203 horses, which are collateral for $34,265,970 in loans that he owes the bank.”
So Fifth Third, still fueled with TARP bail out funds, has been lending tens of millions of dollars secured by horses. We first ran into Fifth Third when they bought Old Kent, coming into the Detroit market. Click here for a scan of a newspaper article about the Community Reinvestment Act challenge, complete with St. Patrick’s Day karaoke and happy hour ads, courtesy of Google.
After the Federal Reserve approved the Fifth Third’s Old Kent acquisition, in the Detroit MSA “at Fifth Third Mortgage, American Americans were over 10.3 times more likely to be confined to higher cost loans than whites, and Hispanics were over 6.3 times more likely to be confined to higher cost loans than non-Hispanic whites.”
And now, horses. Fifth Third deserves more scrutiny….
