Owned by Union, Amalgamated Bank Gives Lift to the Left

[Omaha Steve]

Keith Mestrich, the president of Amalgamated Bank, in front of a collection of political buttons given to him as gifts. Credit Gabriella Demczuk for The New York Times


http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/30/us/politics/owned-by-union-amalgamated-bank-gives-lift-to-the-left.html?_r=0

By NICHOLAS CONFESSOREAUG. 29, 2015

When Ready for Hillary, a pro-Hillary Rodham Clinton “super PAC,” wanted to take out a million-dollar loan five months before it planned to go out of business, it turned to a bank that was founded to guard the savings of New York City garment workers.

When the Democracy Alliance, an influential club of liberal donors, sought to recruit members in advance of the 2016 elections, the bank’s president helped to make introductions.

And when workers-rights groups wanted to embarrass Walmart and the Gap for unsafe working conditions at factories supplying their stores, Amalgamated Bank, which manages $40 billion in pension fund assets, stepped in again, rounding up fellow investors to warn the companies that they could face lawsuits and shareholder actions.

Four years after nearly collapsing amid the financial crisis, Amalgamated has aggressively carved out a position as the left’s private banker, leveraging deep connections with the Democratic establishment to expand rapidly in a niche long dominated by larger but less nimble financial institutions.

FULL story at link.