B2 0 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, MONDAY, AUGUST 3, 2020FINANCE | AUTOMOBILESIt wasn’t until Renée Brinkerhoff’s last of
four children departed for college that
her life changed forever.
“At the age of 55, I had a realization,”
Ms. Brinkerhoff said. It was reassuringly
simple and dauntingly complex: “One
day, I’m going to race a car.”
She chose road rallying; competing on
a racetrack held little interest. Road
rallies, however, would bring her through
countless landscapes with captivating
scenery. She was sold. Still, she was a
novice, and she would have to overcome
huge obstacles, “of which fear was prima-
ry,” she said.
So in 2013, she founded Valkyrie Rac-
ing with one chief goal: to break barriers
for women. The name “Valkyrie” comes
from Norse mythology, where women
warriors saved the worthy from the field
of battle and restored their life in Val-
halla. Ms. Brinkerhoff thinks of them as
warriors who are strong yet compassion-
ate.
She hardly started small, beginning her
racing career in La Carrera Panameri-
cana, a treacherous 2,000-mile road rally
across Mexico considered one of the most
dangerous in the world. She proved she
was a natural, too, reaching the podium
in her first try, and on subsequent entries,
too.
Her ambitions were larger still. “We
found we had a ‘voice,’ though small,”
said Ms. Brinkerhoff, who is now 64 and
lives in Colorado. “People were listening
to our unique story. We thought if we did
something on a bigger scale, a global
scale, we could potentially have a bigger
voice. That was the impetus for Project
356 World Rally Tour.”
Her tour would encompass six rallies
and one ultimate challenge: a drive on
every continent, all while piloting one
vehicle — her classic Porsche 356, for
which she named the project.
And for her project, she chose the most
challenging races on each continent.
Beijing to Paris (otherwise known as
Peking to Paris): crossing so many coun-
tries and time zones. The East African
Safari Classic: the most difficult off-
tarmac classic car rally in the world.
Each rally has its unique challenges; she
wanted to be a groundbreaking part with
each of them.
When she started Project 356, Ms.
Brinkerhoff also saw the event as a way
to give back. “At this same time, we
started our philanthropic arm, Valkyrie
Gives,” she said. “The idea was to use our
racing as a platform to do something
about child trafficking worldwide.”
“The mission to fight child trafficking
found me, I didn’t choose it,” she added. A
few critical coincidences led her to this
cause. “It became apparent to me I was
supposed to do everything I could to fight
for these children.”
By chance, Ms. Brinkerhoff met an
F.B.I. agent whose job was to track down
peddlers of child pornography. In another
chance encounter, she saw a man on an
airport bus viewing an illicit image of a
young child on his phone.
“I do not believe in coincidence, and
knew I was being told to do something
about this,” she said. “I began research-
ing this crime and learned child pornog-
raphy fuels child trafficking and that this
was a massive global problem.”
Her adventurous spirit may owe some-
thing to her childhood. Her early years
were split between a small beach town in
Southern California and also Southeast
Asia during the height of the Cold War.
She and her family lived in Hong Kong
during Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution,
and they lived in Laos at the end of the
Vietnam War.
To date, Ms. Brinkerhoff has rallied her
way through all but one major challenge.
She has competed in 17 countries on six
continents. She will soon face her most
difficult endeavor — Antarctica, where
she and her team will race, alone, against
extreme elements. The plan is to cover
356 miles on ice, and if successful, notch a
land speed record on a blue ice runway at
Union Glacier. Once finished, Ms. Brink-
erhoff will have raced nearly 20,000
miles.
Ms. Brinkerhoff and team have had
many challenges along the way. Corrupt
custom agents held the Porsche and its
parts until they bribed their way past.
Accidents and broken parts, like a crash
at the 2015 Carrera Panamericana race,
kept them on their toes. Delays crossing
oceans and new rally regulations tested
their patience.
More pedestrian issues posed hurdles,
as well, like racing at elevations of up to
16,000 feet and competing in new terrain
that was different than what they had
prepared for. The tour pushed their skills
beyond capacity. Even language barriers
caused hiccups.
Toughest among their challenges was
the East African Safari Classic late last
year across Kenya and Tanzania. “It was
the rainiest season in 40 years and the
roads, already chosen for their difficulty,were more treacherous than planned,”
said Ms. Brinkerhoff, who was a novice
again in this kind of terrain. Deep sand,
thick mud and treacherous water cross-
ings made it difficult for all competitors.
Adding to the adversity, the front right
steering arm wasn’t holding up. It could-
n’t withstand the severe terrain and
repeatedly failed. Eventually, the issue
was corrected and Ms. Brinkerhoff and
her navigator crossed the finish line.
To date, Valkyrie Gives has raised
approximately $200,000 to help fight
child trafficking. All donations have gone
directly to charitable organizations
around the world: Mexico, Australia,
Peru, China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Rus-
sia, the Netherlands, Kenya, Cambodia,
Thailand and the United States.
Ms. Brinkerhoff said she had also
“participated in undercover operations to
gather evidence for law enforcement to
arrest and prosecute traffickers.” She
once spent two weeks in Southeast Asia
working with the Exodus Road, a non-
profit organization with seven offices
worldwide and a staff of 72 that finds and
frees victims of trafficking. Since the
group’s inception, it has rescued more
than 1,500 victims and aided in the arrest
of 600 traffickers and pedophiles, it says.
Matt Parker, an Exodus Road co-
founder and the acting chief executive,met Ms. Brinkerhoff several years ago at
his Colorado Springs office. “She came to
my office and once I heard her remark-
able story, we began a working relation-
ship,” he said.
“Renée is one of the most genuine
people I’ve ever met, and the world is full
of people who want to see trafficking
end,” Mr. Parker added. “But I wish it
was full of people like Renée who will
actually do something about it.”
In November, before the rally in East
Africa, Ms. Brinkerhoff and her team
arrived early to meet with a group they
had supported in Kenya. “When we go to
a country to race,” she said, “we try to
visit the child trafficking charity we have
chosen for support.”
The charity this time was Awareness
Against Human Trafficking, and Sophie
Otiende, the program consultant, shared
a story about two young girls who had
tried to commit suicide just a night be-
fore. “They were waiting to be repatri-ated to their country,” Ms. Otiende told
the group. “They were losing hope of
ever returning home.”
The girls wouldn’t be treated without
making a cash prepayment to the hospi-
tal. The Valkyrie Gives foundation imme-
diately donated the funds to get the girls
admitted to the hospital.
The rallies are thrilling, Ms. Brinker-
hoff said, but making a difference for
children is the most rewarding. “The
memories of the children around the
world that we have been blessed to touch
and their innocent faces will forever be in
our minds and hearts,” she said.
“Since I started racing, I have always
believed it was what I was being called to
do,” she added. “Faith has allowed me to
push through the many fears I’ve faced.”Road Rallying to Fight Child Trafficking
The founder of Valkyrie Racing is on a global quest in her Porsche.
Renée Brinkerhoff, right, with Juliette
Brinkerhoff, her daughter and navigator, at
the 2019 East African Safari Classic Rally.
Left, deep sand, thick mud and treacherous
water crossings made the race difficult, but
Ms. Brinkerhoff and her daughter finished.CHRISTINA BRINKERHOFFJOHN BENNIEWheels
By MERCEDES LILIENTHAL
‘The idea was to use our
racing as a platform.’
Renée Brinkerhoff, racercan law may mean breaking the
new Chinese rules in Hong Kong
— or cost them access to the sec-
ond largest economy in the world.
A recent survey by the American
Chamber of Commerce found that
nearly half of the firms it surveyed
are “extremely concerned” about
recent developments with the na-
tional security law.
“There are multiple tailwinds
pushing the global business world
toward this highly geopolitically
sensitive environment where the
landscape has shifted fundamen-
tally and you can no longer be ag-
nostic,” said Jude Blanchette, a
China scholar at the Center for
Strategic and International Stud-
ies in Washington. “It is the logical
extension of this new paradigm
where economic security is now
considered national security.”
HSBC and Huawei declined to
comment.
HSBC, which now derives most
of its revenues in Hong Kong and
China, has long navigated politics
and profits. During Japan’s occu-
pation of Hong Kong during World
War II, the head of HSBC was
forced to sign bank notes for the
Japanese government. He pro-
vided aid to interned employees.
As Britain and China negotiated
the handover of Hong Kong in the
early 1980s, HSBC was viewed
with mistrust by the Chinese
Communist Party for helping to fi-
nance the trade of opium during
the previous century. In a move to
help win back Beijing’s favor, it
made plans for a splashy new
headquarters in Hong Kong.
HSBC also began to lend to the
local businessmen who would go
on to build the conglomerates that
turned the city into a global finan-
cial center. As Hong Kong profited
from its role as a gateway between
China and the west, HSBC’s own
business boomed.
But HSBC’s unique standing
has become a pitfall. During the
anti-government demonstrations
last year, HSBC was targeted for
its Beijing connections. Pro-
testers smeared red paint on the
bronze lions outside the bank’s
headquarters and set one on fire.
One of HSBC’s clients, Huawei,
has been the major source of polit-
ical tension for the bank.
The Trump administration put
Huawei and other Chinese tech-
nology companies on a list over
national security concerns, which
prevents them from using Ameri-
can technology and software. In
response, China created its own
list and Chinese state media sug-
gested that HSBC be put on it.
As Washington lobbied West-
ern governments to block Huawei
from building their 5G networks,
the British newspaper The Tele-
graph, citing unnamed sources,
reported that HSBC’s chairman,
Mark Tucker, met with advisers to
Prime Minister Boris Johnson on
behalf of the Chinese company
and expressed worry about the re-
percussions in China if Britain
blocked Huawei. Local British me-
dia and politicians lashed out at
HSBC after the report.
“The binary choice being forced
on companies like HSBC is not
coming from the U.K. We are not
asking private businesses to en-
dorse policy or face punishment.
We are not threatening to with-
draw economic cooperation if a
U.K. company fails in a bid,” Tom
Tugendhat, a member of the Con-
servative Party and chairman of
Britain’s Foreign Affairs Commit-
tee, wrote on Twitter.
HSBC’s back channel efforts
didn’t sit well with China’s state-
run media either. “The HSBC
chairman’s warning to Downing
Street is far-fetched and absurd,
and seems more like a political
statement than a business com-
ment,” The Global Times wrote.
Britain in July banned Huawei
from selling its 5G equipment.
Beijing has hurled a series of ac-
cusations against HSBC through
its state controlled media for co-
operating in the case against the
Huawei chief financial officer,
Meng Wanzhou, who is in deten-
tion in Canada and fighting extra-
dition to the United States.
Huawei is accused of flouting
Iranian sanctions and misleading
HSBC about its dealings with an
Iranian company. Ms. Meng’s le-
gal team has argued that Huawei
did not hide anything from HSBC
about its dealings in Iran.
“Wallowing in degradation and
with its reputation at rock bottom,
HSBC may struggle to continue to
enjoy treatment in China,” one
state-controlled newspaper
warned. Other state controlled
newspapers accused HSBC of
malice and dishonesty.
The People’s Daily accused
HSBC of “setting traps” and ar-
gued that the evidence filed to the
court revealed that the case was
“entirely a political case” with
“fabricated criminal evidence.”
On its Chinese social media ac-
count, the bank offered a simple
defense of its cooperation with
prosecutors. “HSBC has no malice
against Huawei, nor has it
‘framed’ Huawei,” it said.A Showdown
Catches HSBC
In the Middle
FROM FIRST BUSINESS PAGEDeutsche Bank has opened an in-
ternal investigation into the long-
time personal banker of President
Trump and his son-in-law, Jared
Kushner, over a 2013 real estate
transaction between the banker
and a company part-owned by Mr.
Kushner.
In June 2013, the banker, Rose-
mary Vrablic, and two of her
Deutsche Bank colleagues pur-
chased a Park Avenue apartment
for about $1.5 million from a com-
pany called Bergel 715 Associates,
according to New York property
records.
Mr. Kushner, a senior adviser to
the president, disclosed in an an-
nual personal financial report late
Friday that he and his wife,
Ivanka Trump, had received $1
million to $5 million last year from
Bergel 715. A person familiar with
Mr. Kushner’s finances, who was-
n’t authorized to speak publicly,
said he held an ownership stake in
the entity at the time of the trans-
action with Ms. Vrablic.
When Ms. Vrablic and her col-
leagues bought the apartment on
Manhattan’s Upper East Side, Mr.
Trump and Mr. Kushner were her
clients at Deutsche Bank. They
had received roughly $190 million
in loans from the bank and would
seek hundreds of millions of dol-
lars more.
Typically banks restrict em-
ployees from doing personal busi-
ness with clients because of the
potential for conflicts between the
employees’ interests and those of
the bank.
Deutsche Bank said it had not
been aware that Ms. Vrablic and
her colleagues had done business
with a company part-owned by
Mr. Kushner until being contacted
by The New York Times.
“The bank will closely examine
the information that came to light
on Friday and the fact pattern
from 2013,” said Daniel Hunter, a
bank spokesman.
A lawyer for Ms. Vrablic, a sen-
ior private banker and managing
director at Deutsche Bank, de-
clined to comment.
The White House referred ques-
tions to the Kushner family’s real
estate company. Christopher
Smith, the general counsel at
Kushner Companies, said: “Kush-
ner is not the managing partner of
that entity and has no involve-
ment with the sales of the apart-
ments.”
Ms. Vrablic bought the apart-
ment, in a brick building at 715
Park Avenue, with Dominic Scalzi
and Matthew Pontoriero. They
worked for Ms. Vrablic in
Deutsche Bank’s private-banking
division, which caters to wealthy
clients. Mr. Scalzi and Mr. Ponto-
riero didn’t respond to requests
for comment on Sunday.
The size of Mr. Kushner’s stake
in Bergel 715 is unclear. The com-
pany has sold dozens of condounits in the Park Avenue building
since the 1980s, according to pub-
lic records. At least one apartment
was sold to the Kushner family’s
real estate company.
Mr. Kushner and Ms. Trump
had not previously disclosed their
stake in Bergel 715. (They did list
the entity used to make the invest-
ment in Bergel 715.) The income
they reported in 2019 wasn’t relat-
ed to the transaction with Ms.
Vrablic.
Bergel 715’s main owners in-
clude George Gellert, a close
friend of the Kushner family and
an investor in numerous deals
with Kushner Companies.There is no indication that the
three Deutsche Bank employees
bought the apartment — de-
scribed on Zillow as a 908-square-
foot, one-bedroom, one-bath unit
with a balcony overlooking Park
Avenue — at a below-market
price.
In 2014, the deed for the apart-
ment, Unit 12A, was transferred to
a limited liability company regis-
tered to Ms. Vrablic’s home ad-
dress, according to property
records. The next year, the apart-
ment was sold for $1.85 million —
a not-unheard-of 22 percent in-
crease from the 2013 purchase
price.
Ms. Vrablic has worked in the
Deutsche Bank private-banking
division since 2006. She has a rep-
utation as one of New York’s lead-
ing private bankers, generating
tens of millions of dollars of annu-
al revenue for the bank.
The Kushner family has been a
client of Ms. Vrablic’s since before
she joined Deutsche Bank. In 2011,
Mr. Kushner brought Ms. Vrablic
to meet his father-in-law. At the
time, most mainstream banks re-
fused to do business with Mr.
Trump because of his history of
defaults and bankruptcies.
“I introduced him to this wom-
an Rosemary,” Mr. Kushner said in
closed-door testimony to the
House Intelligence Committee in- “She is one of the biggest pri-
vate wealth bankers, probably in
the world. Amazing banker, amaz-
ing woman. Very smart banker.
And she banked my family for a
long time.”
Ms. Vrablic and her superiors
soon agreed to take Mr. Trump on
as a client, even though he had de-
faulted on a loan from the bank
three years earlier. In 2012,
Deutsche Bank lent Mr. Trump a
total of about $175 million for his
newly acquired Doral golf resort
outside Miami and for his Trump
International Hotel & Tower in
Chicago.
Mr. Trump soon came back for
more. In 2014 he sought a $1 billion
commitment from Ms. Vrablic to
buy the Buffalo Bills football
team. (Mr. Trump’s bid was re-
jected, making the loan unneces-
sary.) The bank agreed to lend Mr.
Trump’s company $170 million for
its transformation of the Old Post
Office building into the Trump In-
ternational Hotel in Washington.
And Mr. Kushner and his mother
received a $15 million personal
line of credit from Ms. Vrablic’s di-
vision, the largest credit line to
which Mr. Kushner or his parents
had access, according to financial
records reviewed by The Times.
Ms. Vrablic was thrust into the
spotlight when Mr. Trump
boasted to The Times in 2016
about his strong relationship with
Deutsche Bank — and inflated
Ms. Vrablic’s role at the bank.
“Why don’t you call the head of
Deutsche Bank? Her name is
Rosemary Vrablic,” he said in the
interview. “She is the boss.”Deutsche Bank Investigates Personal Banker to Trump and Kushner
A company part-owned by Jared
Kushner sold an apartment to his
personal banker at Deutsche Bank.TOM BRENNER/REUTERSBy JESSE DRUCKER
and DAVID ENRICH