An Eastman Kodak board member donated $ 116 million in corporate shares to an Orthodox Jewish community just before its price collapsed, raising more questions about how business owners benefited from a controversial U.S. government loan.
George Karfunkel, a director of Kodak, and his wife, Renee, donated shares to Chemdas Yisroel on July 3, on July 29, according to a Kodak filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The share donation would entitle the Karfunkels to a large tax return.
Shares rose more than 1,000 percent after a U.S. government agency announced that it had given Kodak a $ 765 million loan to begin producing pharmaceutical ingredients to treat Covid patients. Shares peaked at $ 60 the day the transfer was made, but averaged nearly $ 39 that day.
The government’s development finance corporation has since said it would delay the loan because questions are swirling about its decency. Democrats in Congress have called for an investigation, noted that Kodak has no experience in the pharmaceutical business, and raised questions about trafficking by operators prior to the news.
Kodak shares have fallen since last month’s high to $ 10.43 since Tuesday afternoon. Kodak’s revelation of the charitable deal was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
A Kodak spokesman said: “These issues are within the scope of the broad independent review conducted by outside legal attorneys and overseen by a special council committee.”
Chemdas Yisroel is a Brooklyn municipality that was founded in December 2018, according to governments. Mr. Karfunkel is named as its president. The postal address is that of an accounting firm in Brooklyn, Roth & Co.
A person at the accounting firm said they were not allowed to discuss matters about a separate entity.
Mr. Karfunkel and his late brother, Michael, came to the US from Hungary in the 1950s, according to the Jewish Forward newspaper, and built a multi-billion dollar fortune-telling paperwork for stock notes. They later branched out into insurance.
Mr. Karfunkel was a survivor of the 1976 attack on Entebbe, after a passenger jet was hijacked by Palestinian terrorists targeting Jews.
