The Smoligarchs: Michael Petrie
Hoo owns Indiana's political candidates
The Smoligarchs is a series on the biggest political donors in Indiana. Every state has influential real estate developers, auto dealership owners, medical industry insiders, large agribusiness farmers, and other wealthy individuals with outsized sway in their communities and at the state level. Many of these folks keep their far-right politics hidden behind philanthropy or operate in the shadows, shunning attention altogether. These are the small-scale oligarchs who own the politicians and REALLY make policy in the Hoosier State.
What did he do to make it on this list?
A February contribution of $100,000 to Brad Chambers’ gubernatorial campaign marks the second time Petrie has cut a six-figure check to the former Indiana Secretary of Commerce.
How did Petrie make his money?
Michael F. Petrie is chairman of Merchants Bancorp, a “diversified bank holding company headquartered in Carmel, Indiana operating multiple lines of business, including Federal Housing Administration (“FHA”) multi-family housing and healthcare facility financing and servicing; mortgage warehouse financing; retail and correspondent residential mortgage banking; agricultural lending; and traditional community banking. Merchants Bancorp, with $17 billion in assets and $14.1 billion in deposits as of December 31, 2023, conducts its business primarily through its direct and indirect subsidiaries, Merchants Bank, Merchants Capital Corp., Merchants Capital Servicing, LLC, and Merchants Mortgage, a division of Merchants Bank.”
A 2019 puff piece from Current Publishing continues, “Petrie and his longtime business partner, Randy Rogers of Zionsville, started PR Mortgage & Investments in 1990. It was rebranded to Merchants Capital, which is now one of the divisions of Merchants Bank of Indiana. Petrie started his career at Merchants Bank and Trust, which was later sold to National City Bank, which retired the name. He started working for Merchants Mortgage Corp. in 1980. Rogers was the president of the group. He and Rogers left to form their new company knowing the old Merchants was about to be sold. Rogers, who is semi-retired, now serves as vice chairman.”
And if that all sounds like business gibberish to you, me too! My basic understanding is this: Merchants is a midsize, regional bank, as defined by the Federal Reserve. Regional banks manage $10 billion to $100 billion in assets. Their specialty is lending to real estate developers, particularly multi-family home builders. In plain language, they’re the money guys for landlords (the mortal enemy of the socialist left).
Landlords like Buckingham Companies: founder, President, and CEO - Brad Chambers. In fact, Petrie was the source of Chambers’ first business loan. These guys go way back.
Petrie’s personal net worth is estimated to be somewhere north of $400 million. I’ve seen up to $486 million, but it fluctuates with the price of Merchants Stock (NASDAQ:MBIN).
Who else gets that sweet campaign cash?
These six-figure contributions to Chambers are by far the largest Petrie has ever made, but he has a lengthy Open Secrets profile stretching back to 1989. Recipients have been overwhelmingly Republican, but he has contributed to a handful of “moderate” corporate Democrats like Joe Donnelly, Hillary Clinton, Evan Bayh, John Gregg, and hey! I didn’t expect to run into you here, Sherrod Brown!
And don’t forget Mrs. Petrie. It’s always important to check the contribution record of spouses, too. That’s another $40,000.
Petrie has also shown a proclivity for betting on multiple horses in the same race. When you have hundreds of millions of dollars, you can spread that cash around and buy access to the eventual winner either way. For example,
In 2012, Petrie contributed to both Mike Pence and John Gregg’s gubernatorial campaigns.
In 2016, US Senate candidates Bayh and Todd Young received donations; Petrie also gave to both Gregg and Eric Holcomb for governor.
Both major candidates for US Senate in 2018 - Donnelly and Mike Braun - took money from Petrie.
In this very Republican gubernatorial primary, Petrie has also contributed $10,000 to Suzanne Crouch since 2021.
It must be nice to never lose.
Other political spending of note?
Petrie has been active in industry organizations like,
MERS Board of Directors (2006 – 2010)
FHLBI Board of Directors (2007 – 2008)
Mortgage Bankers Association, Washington D.C. (Immediate Past Chairman 2005-2006, Chairman 2004 – 2005, Chairman Elect 2003 – 2004, Vice Chairman 2002 – 2003, Board of Directors 1999- 2006; 2008 – 2009)
Regarding the last one, in addition to his leadership roles in the organization, Petrie has paid them over $50,000 in dues. MBA is the lobbying organization for the real estate finance industry, routinely spending more than $2.5 annually wining and dining policymakers. Their associated political action committee is also a prolific distributor of campaign contributions, spreading it around almost evenly between Democrats and Republicans.
Well, at least he’s not a Trumper. He seems like a reasonable, principled centrist.
Reasonable? Absolutely. From a purely cynical, capitalist perspective, it’s perfectly reasonable to support whoever is best for the bottom line - or at least a pliable, squishy Democrat who’ll play ball with the fat cats. But principled? He might not want to get that oily Trump stink directly on him, but Petrie still contributes to insurrection supporters like Jim Banks and Ron Johnson, as well as those who continue to seek and accept endorsement from the twice-impeached, traitorous, criminal former president - like my spineless Congresswoman, Erin Houchin.
But what about all of the good stuff he’s done?
I feel like I have to say this every time, but I do not doubt the motivations of the people I profile. In their hearts, most probably think they’re doing the right thing, doing the Lord’s work, healing the world’s social ills.
Good people can perpetuate terrible systems, and it’s usually because their own privilege blinds them to the fact that the very system which has lavished them with such great wealth and power is responsible for the problems they claim to be solving. I’ve said it before and I bet it’ll come up in further installments of this series - philanthropy is a scam.
“He fights for what he believes will help everybody, not just his agenda,” according to Merchants President and CEO Michael Dunlap in the aforementioned Current piece. “He wants to make the world a better place, and he’s a perfect example. He flies to Washington to meet with Congress to further the cause of affordable housing. He cares about Indiana and cares about the country.”
At a glance, he certainly walks the walk. Petrie has served on boards and started nonprofits “in support of [his] lifelong passion for enhancing and preserving affordable housing,” including:
Indianapolis Neighborhood Housing Partnership Board of Directors ( 2015 – 2021)
Indiana Affordable Housing Council (Board of Directors, Vice President)
Merchants Affordable Housing Corporation (Founder and Chairman Emeritus), since rebranded RDOOR, maintains a portfolio of over 3000 units across 19 properties in Indiana, including “hallmark project The Village of Merici, which rehabilitated a historic building on the Fort Benjamin Harrison campus in Lawrence, Ind. It includes 20 ADA-compliant, modern apartments for adults with developmental disabilities funded with Low-Income Housing Tax Credits.”
And this all sounds great, but this is just nibbling at the edges of a systemic problem. A modest portfolio of “affordable” units doesn’t even begin to take a bite out of the affordable housing problem in a system where corporate investors scoop up single-family homes, real estate speculators strategically keep some properties vacant, and landlords hold units back to use as Airbnb’s.
Look at a place like Vienna, Austria, which has managed to keep its rental costs about one third of that in peer cities through a vast network of public and social housing. This is highly effective, but outside the norm even in Europe. The capitalist class is horrified by the idea of collective ownership, even when it works. The property manager needs their cut, the developer needs their cut, the mortgage banker needs their cut.
He’s not so much walking the walk as taking a leisurely stroll. With a selfie stick.
Final Thoughts
Chambers is running in the moderate lane of the Republican primary. Mike Braun is the MAGA extremist, Doden the faith-and-family candidate, Suzanne Crouch the experienced insider.
Petrie and Chambers, and their performative “concern” for the radicalism of their party are perfect examples of what Hoosier author
calls the Radical Center. They “proclaim a host of ‘principles,’ only for the struggle of crisis to reveal they are quite, quite comfortable with the shift to the Right. We saw in the 1980’s with the acceptance of Ronald Reagan and Neoliberalism.”
Petrie didn’t support Trump but still funds his acolytes. He masquerades as a champion of affordable housing but would never meaningfully challenge the system that made him a semi-billionaire. Chambers runs against Braun’s extremism but won’t stand up for Hoosier women’s bodily autonomy, won’t stand up for public education in the face of privatizers, and won’t stand up for LGBTQ youth to receive appropriate care.
This is how authoritarianism takes hold. I’ll let Sexton have the last word - the “Center wants to be tolerant and advocate for what they see as a better world, but they want to retain their institutions as they are in order to maintain their power and wealth.”
Isn’t it wonderful that banks, and their affiliated underlings, whose specialty is lending to real estate developers and multi-family home builders are kind enough to set a whole 20 ADA compliant units. All with the help of Low-Income Housing Tax Credits. All out of the kindness of their cold, black hearts? Of course! And because of this generosity and empathy, they are rewarded with there is substantial financial incentives, a.k.a. tax breaks for these lovely folks.