1990 deal mystery: Who bought Bush's shares in Harken?

Baltimore Sun ^

[count me in]

It is a stock market whodunit that has withstood a decade of scrutiny. Who bought George W. Bush's oil company stock just before its value dropped? The 1990 transaction involving shares of Harken Energy Corp. allowed the future president to pay off a bank loan for his now-famous $600,000 stake in the Texas Rangers baseball team.

Federal regulators who examined the deal as a possible insider trade never asked. Bush says he doesn't know, and the White House declines to ask the broker who handled the transaction.

[jwalsh07]

I bought'em.

Signed,
Spartacus

[DallasMike]

If Harken was a publicly-traded company than that was a really dumb question.

[Brad’s Gramma]

I bought them! Made a killing, too, yes indeedie.

[Mr. Bird]

Bush's oil industry career is a history of being bailed out of money-losing ventures

Nice slam with no details. I'm not disputing the statement (I don't know the particulars), but to state it as a given is hardly responsible journalism.

The last line indicates that had Bush held onto the Harken shares for one more year, he would have more than doubled his profit. The guy is certainly damned by the press either way....

[Hillary's Folly]

Democrats Pounce on Newest Bush Business Scandal

[Oldeconomybuyer]

I thought Julian Bond, the NAACLP, NARAL, the ABA, and all the other liberal alphabet soup lunatics were concerned about governmental invasion of privacy? What law requires the disclosure of all buyers and sellers?

If there is such a law, I'd like to see all the market transactions by Jesse Jackson, Patricia Ireland, Robert Rubin, James Carville, Larry Flynt, Rosie O'Donnell, Barbara Streisand, and Tom Daschle placed through Solomon Barney Franks.

[Oldeconomybuyer]

Also, the day after the profit warning from Harken the stock price rebounded to its pre-warning price.

Source: LA Times (did a FR search and couldn't find the article)

[dennisw]

This can be a problem. If someone bought GWBush's shares in a sweatheart deal to bail him out. I believe Bush got in with the Texas Rangers right after he bailed from Harkin. So he needed cash?


I think there is one buyer and he is not identified. Harkin was a small company so I'm sure the buyer is known by some people.

[Oldeconomybuyer]

Talk about invasion of privacy!

What law requires the disclosure of buyers and sellers?

[wingnuts'nbolts]

Only for the dumb and dumber.

[OldFriend]

Well, my secret's out...........I bought the Harken stock from Bush.................let's keep it just between us Freepers tho.

[RightOnTheLeftCoast]

Correct. Harken's stock dipped and then recovered. No scandal to be found, as the SEC itself determined.

[cryptical]

This can be a problem. If someone bought GWBush's shares in a sweatheart deal to bail him out. I believe Bush got in with the Texas Rangers right after he bailed from Harkin. So he needed cash?

I believe he took a loan to buy a part ownership in the Rangers about a year before, and was contacted by an institutional broker about selling his shares in Harken.
Certainly nothing shady, the sale allowed him to close his loans, and the buyer payed the market price. Block trades are not uncommon, if a person or institution wants to take a large position in a company, they usually try to find a large shareholder willing to sell, rather than try to buy 200,000 shares 100 or 200 at a time from small investors.

[rdavis84]

"When Harken needed an infusion of cash, Bush turned to family friend and investment banker Jackson Stephens of Little Rock, AK. The firm of Stephens Inc. was at the time one of the largest investment banks outside Wall Street. (The Stephens family was also active in Republican circles: Jackson Stephens would later contribute at least $200,000 to the Bush for President campaign, and his wife would become the Arkansas campaign chair.) Stephens rescue plan was to obtain $25 million in investment capital from Union Bank of Switzerland -- a joint venture of BCCI and the Banque de Commerce et de Placements in Geneva. UBS did not normally invest in small U.S. companies, but it made an exception in this case.

As originally structured, the deal apparently did not comply with U.S. banking regulations, according to the Asian Wall Street Journal. In the course of restructuring the deal, UBS decided to sell its shares as soon as possible, and Stephens obligingly found a new buyer: Sheikh Abdullah Bakhsh, a Saudi Arabian real-estate magnate. Bakhsh's representative is Talat Othman, a Palestinian born Chicago investor.

For several years Bakhsh was chairman of Saudi Finance Co., a holding company based in Luxembourg that operated French and Swiss financial enterprises. Bakhsh sold his interest in Saudi Finance Co. in 1983, although it is not clear to whom. By 1989 the firm was under partial control of the Gokal family of Pakistan -- shipping magnates who were BCCI shareholders. Bakhsh conducted business with the most prominent people in Saudi Arabia, reportedly including two oil ministers and members of the Saudi royal family. Among his notable co-investors was Ghaith Pharaon; Khalid bin Mahfouz was Bakhsh's banker. Bakhsh's stake in Harken was 17.6% in 1991, making him the third largest shareholder. The first, with 24.5%, is a Harvard University investment fund.

Jackson Stephens was identified by the Kerry committee as possibly "BCCI's Principal U.S. Broker," having facilitated BCCI's first acquisitions of U.S. banking concerns National Bank of Georgia and its former parent, Financial General Bankshares.

Ghaith Pharaon is still wanted by the FBI for wire fraud and racketeering conspiracy, according to the Justice Department's Interagency International Fugitive Lookout. (Incidentally, the DOJ site lists him as 93 inches tall, although "of short stocky build….") Pharaon's own web site relates that he is the son of the personal physician and advisor to former King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia. He attended the Colorado School of Mines and Stanford University, graduating with a degree in petroleum engineering. In 1965 he received an MBA from Harvard Business School, as his web site says. "a degree and training which became common to a number of other Saudis and Middle Easterners who later rose to prominence in government, business and commerce in the area," -- not to mention George W. Bush."

[rdavis84]

Clinton's Bail Out man Jackson Stephens is likely. That's why it needs to be known.

Jackson Stephens, Riady, Worthen Clinton, remember?

[thinden]

why BE president when you can own one? or three?

[rdb3]

The guy is certainly damned by the press either way....

The press AND certain FReepers. This has been investigated over and over again, yet nothing illegal has been found. If the Democrat-Media complex could find nothing, yet still issue blurbs that raise scrutiny of Bush, that's understandable in the nature of politics.

Buy my question is simply this: What is the motivation by those on the Right who keep bringing it up? What is their angle?

[Fred Mertz]

OMG.....bump!

[grania]

Do you have a source for this? Is there anything to the Little Rock connection?