TMZ.com Blog Post Forces Northern Trust To Repay $1.6 Billion In Bailout

Northern Trust is an investment management company with $82 billion in banking assets and $3 trillion in assets under custody.  The company’s headquarters are in Chicago.  Northern Trust received about $1.6 billion in federal bailout money.

What Northern Trust did with the bailout money did not directly benefit any of their customers.  Instead the company used the money to pay Sheryl Crow for a private concert, sponsor golf tournaments, and flew clients and employees to LA for lavish parties.   What a way to spend our tax dollars, eh?

AOL-owned blog TMZ.com exploited the events and then the bank was forced to returned their bailout money.  I actually thought this was amazing.  TMZ fixed something that was wrong.  Northern Trust laid off 450 workers in December and then turned around and spent a lot of our tax dollars on paying for private concerts.  Northern Trust did not even request for bailout money.

Congressman Barney Frank demanded the money back and Northern Trust CEO Frederick Waddell stated that he will repay the funds “as quickly as prudently possible.”

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