I was reading this on our Drive up to DC last Sunday, I think this is something that ALL Georgians should know about. From the AJC:
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2009/01/18/perdue_loan.htmlPerdue’s $21 million loan raises questionsGov. Sonny Perdue faces a personal financial challenge this winter that rivals state government’s budget crisis: repaying a $21 million loan that comes due March 1.
Perdue and his two agricultural businesses borrowed the money last September, just as tight credit markets escalated the nation’s economic downturn. Perdue won’t say in detail why he took out the loan, or how he plans to pay it off.
“He’s a small businessman,” said Bert Brantley, Perdue’s spokesman. “As small businesses and small business owners around the state know, sometimes you have to personally sign for loans for your business.”
Nevertheless, public records and interviews suggest the governor got the loan under remarkable circumstances.
The lender — a farm credit bank based in Perry — allowed Perdue to put up collateral worth less than 20 percent of the loan’s value, according to a security deed filed in Houston County Superior Court. Commercial lenders typically insist on a far greater level of collateral, and the federal agency that regulates farm banks requires strict underwriting standards to guarantee loan repayment.
The bank, AgGeorgia Farm Credit, focuses on real estate lending and carries just $55 million in business loans on its books, according to its latest quarterly report. Now a large proportion of that portfolio is devoted to the governor, who is a familiar figure to AgGeorgia’s leaders: Eight of the bank’s 23 directors contributed to Perdue’s re-election campaign in 2006.
The bank’s chief executive declined to comment.
The loan highlights the degree to which Perdue has departed from the way previous governors handled their personal finances.
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“He’s within the law to not disclose it,” said Bill Bozarth, executive director of the public interest group Common Cause of Georgia. “But it begs for further explanation he should be willing to give. Why does he need $21 million?”
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Through his first term as governor, Perdue operated with little debt. On his 2006 financial disclosure form, he said Houston Fertilizer owed AgGeorgia $877,985 on a loan dating to 1996. He owed nothing on his home or other property.
But in 2007, shortly after his re-election, Perdue took on substantially more debt, public records filed in Houston County show.
First, in March 2007, Perdue borrowed $10 million from AgGeorgia. A few weeks later, he paid off the 1996 loan. In December 2007, Perdue took out another loan from AgGeorgia, this one for $3 million.
Then, last Sept. 26, he borrowed the $21 million and repaid the two loans from 2007. The $21 million was due five months later.
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Last fall, AgGeorgia lent to Perdue even though his collateral covered just 19 percent of the loan value. The deed that secured the loan shows Perdue put up 13 pieces of real estate — including his home in Bonaire — worth about $1.6 million. He also pledged his businesses and all their assets — another $2.3 million, according to his 2006 financial disclosure.
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Sonny Says he doesn't have to disclose anything becuase he can't run again for office, and that is all well and good, but if you read this entire article, it really looks like he is to some VERY shady dealings... Including Specials deals with people who donated money to him...
2010 is still a ways away... and there is a new DoJ in DC.
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