CIT Group said yesterday that the president of its Student Loan Xpress unit, which has been the focus of investigations into allegations of influence peddling in the $85 billion-a-year college-loan industry, has left the company.

The executive, Fabrizio Balestri, had been placed on leave in April and is “no longer with the company,” said Curt Ritter, a spokesman for New York-based CIT Group. Ritter declined to say when or under what circumstances Balestri departed.

Balestri is the third executive to leave Student Loan Xpress after allegations by New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo of conflicts of interest with officials of universities and the U.S. Education Department. CIT Group last month agreed to pay $3 million to resolve the probe, the largest accord with any company or school.

Student Loan Xpress’s bid to gain access at U.S. universities since 2002 had included issuing company stock and paying consultant fees to financial-aid officials who recommended lenders to students and their families, investigators have said. Cuomo called the accord with CIT Group a “linchpin” in cleaning up industry practices.

Aid directors at four schools, including Columbia University, have lost their jobs over their ties to Student Loan Xpress, and others have been placed on leave.

CIT Group said April 9 that it had placed Balestri, chief executive Mike Shaut and Vice Chairman Robert deRose on leave in response to Cuomo’s investigation. In a statement May 10, Cuomo’s office referred to Shaut and deRose as former employees of CIT Group, and Ritter confirmed yesterday that they are no longer with the company.

Balestri in 2001 acquired privately placed shares in Direct III Marketing, then the parent company of Student Loan Xpress, and later sold or transferred some of the shares to financial-aid officials at Columbia, the University of Texas and the University of Southern California, Cuomo has said. CIT bought the student-loan provider in 2005.

Balestri also provided shares to Matteo Fontana, who then went to work in the Education Department’s student-aid office, according to Cuomo. The department placed Fontana on leave in April and asked its inspector general to investigate.

Information from: www.washingtonpost.com

This entry was posted by Taman Siswa on Wednesday, June 6, 2007 at 10:53 pm and is filed under Education News, Student Loan. Tags: College, Education News, Student, Student Loan, . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.