| -Caveat Lector-
Business
neocon-style...
Why does there seem to be such an intimate
connection between crooked billionaires and Israel? Sometimes it seems
like Zionism is just a front for the operations of an international gang of
plutocrats.
Conrad Black, like Rupert Murdoch, is a
militant Likudnik. This controversy seems to be similar to scandals
involving figures like Robert Maxwell, Michael Milken, Boris Berezovsky, Mikhail
Khodorkovsky and numerous others.
Could the Iraq War have
been designed to increase the wealth and power of this predatory
clique? Perish such a cynical thought -- we're fighting for "democracy"
and "God."
At Hollinger, Big Perks in A Small World By Steven Pearlstein It's amazing the coincidences you find digging into Hollinger International,
the publishing empire that includes Chicago's Sun-Times and London's Daily
Telegraph and is quickly slipping from Conrad Black's control. Let's start with the board of directors, which includes Barbara Amiel,
Conrad's wife, whose right-wing rants have managed to find an outlet in
Hollinger publications. And there's Washington superhawk Richard Perle, who heads Hollinger Digital,
the company's venture capital arm. Seems that Hollinger Digital put $2.5 million
in a company called Trireme Partners, which aims to cash in on the big military
and homeland security buildup. As luck would have it, Trireme's managing partner
is none other than . . . Richard Perle. Perle, of course, has been pushing hard for just such a military buildup from
his other perch at the Pentagon's secretive and influential Defense Policy
Board, where there are a number of other Friends of Hollinger. There's Gerald Hillman, managing partner of Hillman Capital, which also got a
$14 million investment from Hollinger, according to the Financial Times. Hillman
is also a partner at Trireme. And then there's Henry Kissinger, another longtime Hollinger director, though
it must be said that Henry is very busy and was only able to make one board
meeting last year. Rounding out the Hollinger director-hawks is Richard Burt, the former arms
negotiator and ambassador to Germany. Burt is also on the board of Archer
Daniels Midland, whose former chairman, Dwayne Andreas, and director Robert
Strauss, were also Hollinger directors until last year. Small world, huh? Some might consider Andreas a somewhat risky choice for corporate director,
inasmuch as ADM had to pay a $100 million fine for price-fixing during his
watch. But Andreas probably felt right at home at Hollinger, alongside A. Alfred
Taubman, who as head of Sotheby's was nabbed for fixing art auction prices.
Taubman gave up his Hollinger seat last year, around the time he checked into
prison. The coincidences don't stop there. When Hollinger wanted to unload some of its smaller newspapers recently, the
winning bidders were Horizon Publications and Bradford Publishing, which happen
to be partly owned by Black and his closest lieutenants. Hollinger even
graciously agreed to finance a portion of the sales. And imagine everyone's surprise when it came out that Hollinger had paid $8
million for a collection of memos and letters of FDR, who just happens to be the
subject of Black's new 1,134-page biography. Perhaps investors might have been willing to put up with a controlling
shareholder inclined to use the company as his personal piggy bank (did I
mention the lavish homes and chauffeured cars in Chicago and New York?) had
Hollinger turned out to be a great investment. But, alas, it hasn't been.
Between 1998 and 2002, as Hollinger paid out more than $200 million to Black and
close associates in the form of salary, management fees and non-compete
payments, the company was able to eke out a total profit of $23 million. During
that period, Hollinger shares fell 25 percent while other publishing shares rose
-- 17 percent at Gannett and 20 percent at Knight Ridder. This is all, of course, vintage Black, who got his start as a corporate
wheeler-dealer snookering Canadian widows and raiding employee pension funds.
But shame on Hollinger's directors for letting themselves be used as corporate
hood ornaments, lending legitimacy to Lord Black's financial manipulations and
relentless social climbing. Only one, former Illinois governor James Thompson, was willing to defend
himself yesterday, suggesting at one point that there was only so much directors
could do with a chief executive wielding absolute voting control. So far,
however, there is scant evidence that any of them even tried, at least until
dissident shareholders threatened to sue. Steven Pearlstein will host a Live Online discussion today at 2:30 p.m. on
www.washingtonpost.com. He
can be reached at [EMAIL PROTECTED].
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="">ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om |
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