1 effort to further the cause of the bank, and the obtaining of 2 3 4 5 7 8 new business, and building up present business, present States. Q Do you have any credit functions as far as evaluating of credit? A I am a general loan officer. I have been on the credit end of the business for almost as long as I have been with the bank.. As a general loan officer, do you have a lending A Yes, any thing over -- well, we have State 12 13 have a sheet on this? Do you have this information? MR. BALAMUT: No, we don't have it available. Betsy Jo said she would try to get it. THE WITNESS: It goes in stages, various levels, and various groups of officers, can make certain loans, up to be approved by two general loan officers. Between $10 and However, in certain cases of unusual loans, which is a rather broad term, but it is defined in the sheet that you are About to get, if that is what Betsy Jo is going after, there, in many cases general loan officers okay or initials on 1 2 3 5 6 7 8 the loan would be required. Q General loan officer, and what are the other types of loan officers? A Supervisory, going down the line, and then senior loan officers and loan officers. Q If we had a loan in the amount of approximately $3 million, where would that shake out as far as persons that would have to approve the loan? - A It would depend on the type of loan it is. If it by ordinary, in the sense that it is a straight, unsecured line of credit type loan to a corporation, partnership, whatever, straight business loan, the senior 10 is an ordinary loan 11 12 13 vice president could okay that. But again, all loans must be okayed by two officers. No one officer is allowed to okay a loan. That is the loan is not okayed by this bank until two of the necessary grades have okayed it. At no point can a single officer do this. Q When, Mr. Jenkins, did you first become aware of the fact that a Mr. Bert Lance was borrowing 22 A That goes back into early 1975, when Bert Lance, 23 who had been known to our Southern Division for quite a number 24 of years, notified us that he wished to buy stock in the National Bank of Georgia. Q I show you what we have marked as C of C Number 2, 2 detailing a meeting on April 16, 1975, and ask you if that 3 refreshes your recollection as to a meeting you may have 5 6 attended concerning the at which time a loan was discussed. A Well, it says here they were briefly introduced. If I can explain that sentence just a moment? 8 10 11 12 13 14 155 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 A Briefly introduced, this happens many times during the course of the day, when customers come into the bank, and are dealing with the officers in the District that handle that part of the United States. We are broken down into ten Districts. So that geographic people do the main work with the customers, and so very often the customer is brought around, or we are asked to stop by and shake hands, and say hello, just so we know each other, and it is an introductory kind of thing, and that is about all that happens. I would suspect that that is about all that happened in this one. Q Do you have any independent recollection of the negotiations that were had between representatives of the 23 And that is pretty normal the way we operate. 8 Your contact on April 16th, you think was just intro 3 A I believe so. If it were more than that, I would Q The memorandum, if you would look on page two, and paragraph four, indicates that the it was not the policy of the bank to make a loan against more than ten percent of bank stock, and not the policy to do acquisition loans. policy? Do you have any recollection of that, one, that Is that your recollection of the policy of the bank? A As a general policy of the bank, yes. Ten percent is the number that we work from. Q Okay. In situations where you would be making a loan for acquisition, or you would be making a loan in excess of ten percent of the bank stock, what procedures would have to be followed? A An acquisition loan is a funny animal. You have to be careful what you do with it. So it gets special attention. The ten percent rule is general policy rule, yes, but again, as happens in any kind of a loan transaction, I am speaking generally now, about our activities, we don't have a book which says you do this or you do that. We have a policy lined up. But if it behooves us to do something that varies from that policy, then a general 9. 1 2 3 4 loan officer could say all right, we will consider that, and then we go into the considèration of it. At that point in the game what we are saying is okay. you have a deal that is going to go beyond ten percent, let embrace acquisition loans. 5 us say, or it is an acquisition loan, and we don't normally 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 133 14 MR. SERINO: One second. Off the record. (Discussion off the record.) MR. SERINO: Back on the record. THE WITNESS: But in certain instances, if our judgment indicates that it is helpful to go forward with a deal, we might say go ahead and consider it. We are not telling the man at that point that he has an acquisition loan, or he has got a loan that is not quite in line with our policies. We are saying to our loan officers, at least I am, that the people who are on the line and dealing with the customer, can yes, go ahead and consider it. How this is going to turn out is some thing else again. Do you have any recollection subsequent to the concerning this particular loan? 24 A No, there wasn't any lengthy discussion with me on |