Author: muckety

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America’s newest quarter-billionaire, who just completed one of the largest corporate buyout deals in history, plans to relax a bit for the next few months.

Among John Wilder’s main ambitions in that timespan are driving coast-to-coast, reading the Bible cover to cover, riding a camel, camping with his sons, and learning how to ballroom dance.

The former chairman and CEO of TXU is now technically unemployed. But he personally walked away with more than $270 million from the $32 billion private equity buyout, completed last week.

TXU, now called Energy Future Holdings Corp., is owned by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and TPG, formerly Texas Pacific Group.

“I’ve never regretted for a moment my decision to join TXU,” Wilder wrote in a farewell letter to employees at the completion of the deal. He joined the company in 2004 and is credited with resurrecting the financial fortunes of the Texas power giant.

His three-page letter, posted on DallasNews.com, is a curious mix. At times it reads like an Oscar acceptance speech, self-motivational tome, position-wanted advertisement and corporate morale booster.

“I am convinced that you are set to lead the power industry into a momentous new era,” he writes to those he left behind.

He thanks those who helped him and advises his former employees to prepare their own “life lists” of things to do before they die. Thus, his desire to ride a camel and dance.

He says he is going to spend some time with his charity, the John and Susan Wilder Foundation. He may join a corporate board or two. And, when he’s ready, he might go back to work in the energy industry.

“I’ll consider CEO jobs at company turnarounds as well as chairman jobs, advisory boards, private investing, energy technology startups, global liquefied natural gas jobs,” he writes. “All I’m really looking for is a professional opportunity where I can use my knowledge and contribute.”

His Muckety Map (above) indicates he shouldn’t have any trouble finding something suitable.

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This post was archived from createpositivechange.org/. View the original on the Wayback Machine.

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Portfolio has an excellent story this month detailing Chiquita Brands‘ illicit payments to Colombian paramilitary groups responsible for killing thousands of people.

No wonder there was some outrage when a U.S. court recently approved a deal that punished Chiquita with only a fine.

“For $25 million those who financed a mass massacre of Colombians were able to purchase impunity,” Colombia Interior Minister Carlos Holguin told the Associated Press.

Between 1997 and 2004, Chiquita gave $1.7 million to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or A.U.C. Chiquita called it extortion, saying it felt compelled to make the payments. Otherwise, its workers could have been killed.

Portfolio’s Kevin Gray writes that Chiquita’s full board of directors wasn’t informed of the payments until April 2003. Former CEO Cyrus Freidheim decided to continue them, but by February 2004 new CEO Fernando Aguirre had stopped them.

Aguirre joined Chiquita in January 2004 from Procter & Gamble. Both companies are based in Cincinnati.

This is not the Chiquita of billionaire financier Carl Lindner. His control ended when the company emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2002. Each of Chiquita’s eight directors is new since then, according to company filings.

Overseas Shipholding Group CEO Morten Arntzen, private investor Robert Fisher, former P&G CEO Durk Jager and S.C. Johnson & Son executive Steven Stanbrook joined the board in 2002.

Jaime Serra, former Mexico secretary of finance, joined in 2003, and Aguirre the following year. Clare Hasler, executive director of the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Service, joined in 2005. Howard Barker Jr., former partner at KMPG, joined last month.

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“Don’t tase me, bro!” immediately entered the national lexicon when university police in Florida zapped a student at a John Kerry speech last month. The phrase already has its own entry in Wikipedia and is well on its way to becoming part of the “permanent cultural lexicon,” Wired says.

But the incident also substantially raised the profile of Taser International, makers of the police zappers. Company stock is skyrocketing on new orders and it has fended off dozens of lawsuits. On Monday, Taser reported a doubling of its third-quarter sales. Its shares surged nearly 11 percent Tuesday. The stock is trading at its highest level in two years.

In 2006, only 20% of U.S. domestic law enforcement agents carried Taser stun guns; in 2007, that figure is expected to hit 30%, according to an analyst at Craig-Hallum Capital.

This is a far better picture for Taser International than two years ago, when it was hit with embarrassing revelations about insider stock sales and investigations by the SEC and the Arizona attorney general. (The investigations ultimately resulted in no charges against the company.)

Forbes reported that several members of the founding Smith family and board members of Taser sold large amounts of stock just before the price collapsed in early 2005. Phillips W. Smith retired as chairman and sold $40.8 million worth of holdings. His sons Patrick and Thomas Smith sold $23 million and $17.7 million of Taser stock respectively, totaling 22% of their combined common stock holdings.

The company also was stung in 2004 after President Bush appointed Bernard Kerik, a company director, to run the Homeland Security Department. Kerik made $6.2 million exercising stock options from Taser, which had contracts with Homeland Security and New York City. Taser was one of many companies that received contracts through Kerik’s relationship with former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, after he left his job as New York City police commissioner in 2001. Kerik subsequently withdrew his name from consideration as Homeland Security secretary.

There have been an estimated 84 deaths associated with Tasers but the Scottsdale, Ariz., company has been aggressive in defending itself in court. Taser announced on its web site this month the 59th time a wrongful death or injury lawsuit had been dismissed or judged in favor of Taser.

On Tuesday, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana dismissed a lawsuit against Taser. In that case, the family of a 55-year-old man, who was intoxicated, didn’t show why he went into cardiac arrest when he was shocked by a Taser.

On the web
Taser’s Stunning Comeback – Forbes