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Tag: Antonin Scalia
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Benazir Bhutto’s American support network
MAP HINTS: Click expands a name. Control+Click centers map on a name. Solid lines are current relations. Dotted lines are former relations. For advanced tools choose Tools > Options from the menu at top. More help. Not seeing the maps? Please go here to check for the latest version of Java.No other foreign politician appreciated the importance of connections more than the late Benazir Bhutto.
The Pakistani opposition leader, assassinated Thursday in Rawalpindi, made regular trips to the U.S., paid the D.C. lobbying firm Burson-Marsteller hundreds of thousands of dollars, and cultivated a long list of friends among American journalists and politicians.
A graduate of Radcliffe and Oxford, she maintained decades-long friendships with classmates. Commentator Arianna Huffington, who had known Bhutto since their student days, described her as “fearlessness epitomized.”
Among Bhutto’s many American friends and advisers were Washington Post columnists E.J. Dionne and Michael Kinsley. Mark Siegel, former executive director of the Democratic National Committee, has co-written a book with her, set for publication in 2008.
The U.S. played a major role in her return to Pakistan last October, after being forced from power in 1996. But in the end, support in America was not enough to protect her in her home country.
“I always thought this was roughly how it would end for her, but I didn’t think it would happen today,” friend Peter W. Galbraith, a former U.S. ambassador and son of economist John Kenneth Galbraith, told The New York Times.
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Stephen Ross, dealmaker
MAP HINTS: Click expands a name. Control+Click centers map on a name. Solid lines are current relations. Dotted lines are former relations. For advanced tools choose Tools > Options from the menu at top. More help. Not seeing the maps? Please go here to check for the latest version of Java.New York real estate magnate Stephen M. Ross has been cutting deals at a whirlwind pace in recent weeks.
Centerline Holding Company, which he chairs, today announced that Freddie Mac would securitize its $2.8 billion bond portfolio. Centerline said it would also receive a $131 million investment in January from the Related Cos.
Centerline execs said the moves were designed to reduce debt, attract capital for growth and shelter the firm from volatile interest rates.
Yet several stockholders participating in the company’s online conference call this morning described the arrangement as a sweetheart deal benefitting Ross and his companies at the expense of public shareholders.
Ross also chairs Related Cos. Jeff T. Blau, Related’s president, is a managing trustee of Centerline. A third Centerline trustee, Robert J. Dolan, is dean of the Stephen M. Ross School of Business, named for its prime benefactor.
Related had a large cash infusion earlier this month, when several firms invested a total $1.4 billion. Mubadala Development Co. of Abu Dhabi and the Olayan Group of Saudi Arabia put in about $1 billion. Goldman Sachs and Michael Dell’s investment company, MSD Capital, invested an additional $400 million for a 7.5% stake, placing Related’s value at more than $5 billion.
Ross told the Wall Street Journal that Related opened talks for the cash infusion before the mortgage crisis erupted. The market “was so good we knew it wouldn’t last,” he said.
Ross formed Related 25 years ago to develop and manage government-assisted rental apartments. Over the last two decades, the company has become heavily involved in luxury residential and commercial projects, including Manhattan’s Time Warner Center.
Related is also developing properties around Penn Station, and is bidding on a massive project to redevelop the Hudson Yards on the city’s west side.
On another front, the Miami Herald reported two weeks ago that Ross and Jorge Perez were talking to Wayne Huizenga about buying the Miami Dolphins. Perez is the managing general partner of Related’s Florida operations.
Read related stories: Business
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Buffett buys one of the Pritzkers’ prizes
MAP HINTS: Click expands a name. Control+Click centers map on a name. Solid lines are current relations. Dotted lines are former relations. For advanced tools choose Tools > Options from the menu at top. More help. Not seeing the maps? Please go here to check for the latest version of Java.Warren Buffett has followed the dealings of the Pritzker family for half a century, but he had never had a direct business connection to them. . .until now.
In a deal announced Christmas day, Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is paying $4.5 billion for 60 percent of Pritzker-owned Marmon Holdings, a conglomerate with about $7 billion in annual revenue. Berkshire will acquire most of the remainder of Marmon over the next few years.
The transaction between the Oracle of Omaha and Chicago’s wealthiest family took less than two weeks to execute, according to The Wall Street Journal.
“I liked them,” Buffett told the Journal. “They were my kind of guys. I knew I’d be very comfortable.”
In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, Tom Pritzker, chairman of Marmon, said the deal will “give more freedom to those family members who want more freedom.”
Counting Marmon, the family has raised more than $10 billion from asset sales the past six years, according to the Journal, as it progresses toward a goal of dividing holdings among 11 adult cousins by 2011.
Jay and Robert Pritzker, grandsons of founder Nicholas Pritzker, ran the family’s businesses for decades. Jay died in 1999. Tom is Jay’s son.
The family still holds large stakes in the Hyatt hotel chain, Royal Caribbean Cruises and TransUnion, a credit bureau.
One other Buffett-Pritzker connection: Tom Pritzker told the Tribune that his mother, Cindy, once served on the board of trustees of Grinnell College in Iowa with Buffett, who became a trustee in 1968 and remains on the board.
Read related stories: Business · Dynasties
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Losing money but getting a bonus at D.R. Horton
MAP HINTS: Click expands a name. Control+Click centers map on a name. Solid lines are current relations. Dotted lines are former relations. For advanced tools choose Tools > Options from the menu at top. More help. Not seeing the maps? Please go here to check for the latest version of Java.If you have been following D.R. Horton and the troubled home building industry, you might be wondering how a company that reported a net loss of more than $700 million in its most recent fiscal year can pay its top two executives nearly $1.6 million apiece in performance bonuses for that year.
The answer: Fort Worth-based Horton calculates and pays its bonuses quarterly, not annually. So, if the company makes money in a quarter, the executives earn bonuses, no matter what happens in the other reporting periods.
The bonus formula is even more finely focused in the October-December period, according to the company’s annual proxy statement released last week. Then, executive bonuses are based solely on December. In effect, October and November don’t count.
Horton, one of the largest builders in the country, reported losses of more than $870 million in the last half of its 2007 fiscal year, ended Sept. 30, erasing profit from the first half.
Since 2001, chairman Donald Horton and CEO Donald Tomnitz each have received more than $45 million in bonuses. That includes a total of nearly $25 million apiece during the boom years of 2005 and 2006.
In fiscal 2007, bonuses were based on consolidated pre-tax income. At its annual meeting Jan. 31, the company is asking shareholders to approve compensation plan modifications that, in part, also factor in cost containment and operating cash flow.
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Holiday greetings from Muckety!
MAP HINTS: Click expands a name. Control+Click centers map on a name. Solid lines are current relations. Dotted lines are former relations. For advanced tools choose Tools > Options from the menu at top. More help. Not seeing the maps? Please go here to check for the latest version of Java.By Emily Morgan & A. James Memmott
‘Tis the season for re-runs: all holiday themed
who can go a whole year without the Grinch being mean?
Whether Jim Carrey or Boris Karloff is your Grinch of choice,
after eggnog and presents, we’ll watch Whoville rejoice.Lionel Barrymore’s mean; a banker from hell,
But an angel gets wings, when you hear a bell.
Donna Reed, bless her heart, stands by her man,
Tiny Bedford Falls remains life’s chosen land.To the south, in Manhattan, where life can be sweet,
there’s a wonderful Miracle on 34th Street.
Edmund Gwenn shows us that Santa is real,
and Natalie Wood gets in on the deal.Bing Crosby, like Stewart, carved out a win
when he sang White Christmas in Holiday Inn.
He merits a present, as does Fred Astaire.
In a movie together they make quite a pair.And let’s hear it for Home Alone, one, two and three,
That Macaulay Culkin deserves a Christmas tree.
Say thanks to Catherine O’Hara, also John Candy,
going back to her kid, she finds his van handy.Tim Allen’s just right in Christmas with the Kranks.
In skipping the holiday, he gets no thanks.
But The Santa Clause makes Allen take a new role,
And he starts his residency in the North Pole.Please sing a rousing Christmas carol
in honor of the goofy Will Ferrell.
He’s tall for an elf, but has a big heart,
And how can he lose with a dad like Newhart?And let’s not forget Ed Asner, a familiar Claus.
In a magical sleigh, he defies gravity’s laws.
A Santa for the ages, he never gets old.
Beneath a crusty exterior beats a heart of gold.A leg lamp for Dad is part of one Christmas Story,
A tribute to BB guns in all their glory.
“You’ll shoot your eye out,” we’ll happily call,
as Peter Billingsley sits with Santa at his local mall.But if the traditional holidays aren’t what you love most,
Turn your TV to Seinfeld, and Festivus we’ll toast.
Complications ensue, and the plot thickens.
It’s a holiday tale right out of Dickens.And speaking of Dickens, Charles, we mean,
Bill Murray’s Scrooge lights up the screen.
A nasty TV exec — how could that be?
He finally appreciates what others see.Happy endings, of course, are part of the plot.
Bad guys become good guys, like it or not.
So we’ll echo the films and wish you good cheer.
Have a happy holiday and a Muckety New Year! Read related stories: Celebs · Entertainment
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