Finance
Billionaire Beal’s Bank Scored Record Year After Tapping the Fed
- Firm borrowed as much as $4.7 billion from discount window
- It then made wager tied to inflation, rising interest rates
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The Federal Reserve’s discount window has been so synonymous with trouble that the central bank has taken steps to reduce the stigma of banks tapping it. But just before the latest banking crisis, the window’s biggest borrower was a small Las Vegas bank, fueling its best year ever.
Beal Bank USA — part of the financial empire of Andy Beal, a billionaire supporter of President Donald Trump — tapped the Fed for billions of dollars in emergency financing in late 2022, just before the regional-banking crisis that took out lenders including Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic Bank.