Barry Levinson
One of the activities being investigated accorded to the Los Angeles Times is an alleged serious conflict of interest deal between Banc of California and a new soccer stadium wherein the bank pays the owners $100 million for the naming rights to the stadium over 15 years. A new stadium and a new league that has yet to play one game gets this amount of money seem very suspicious on the surface.
The Los Angeles Times did dig deeper and apparently so did the SEC because the part owner of this new Major League Soccer franchise is none other that Jason Sugarman, Steven Sugarman’s brother. This appears to be an extremely serious conflict of interest that a stadium that has not yet been built and a team and a league that has not yet played even one game would garner such a huge some of money upfront. Naming rights for even established teams and leagues for football, basketball or baseball stadiums has been controversial in the past. The reason is that it is hard to financially quantify the benefit for any corporation to spend 10’s of millions of dollars on naming rights.
The article goes on to state that there are other deals that supposedly the SEC is looking into concerning the bank but does expound on those other deals.
Below is the April 29,2017 article reprinted from the Los Angeles Times by James Rufus Koren as follows:
HILDA SUGARMAN-FSD BOARD PRESIDENT
#1 by Barry Levinson on April 30, 2017 - 4:44 pm
We need the FSD board of Trustees to tell us whether the FSD has any banking relationship with Banc of California. If they do it very well could be a conflict of interest as the President of the FSD Board of Trustees is the mother of the former CEO of Banc of California.
Dr Pletka should disclose in writing any relationship between the FSD and Banc of California immediately.
#2 by Anonymous on May 11, 2017 - 2:04 pm
You are a fool. The district has nothing to do with the Banc of California.
#3 by Fullerton's Conscience on May 12, 2017 - 12:13 am
Mr. Levinson is asking a very logical question of whether or not the FSD has banking relationships with the Banc of California. For the only fool would be the one who thinks that question is foolish. We have learned that there are actions that were led by Steven Sugarman that apparently got him canned as CEO and that he is now being investigated by the SEC. A fool is someone who would ignore these facts and not demand an answer to that question.