Posted on 04/11/2002 3:22:58 AM PDT by Liz
LOS ANGELES, April 10 — Former President Bill Clinton has been hired as a senior adviser at two investment funds that specialize in lower-income urban and rural communities.
The funds, the Yucaipa American Fund and the Yucaipa Corporate Initiatives Fund, were started in the last year by Ronald W. Burkle, a former grocery store magnate. Mr. Clinton is a friend of Mr. Burkle and often stays at his house.
Mr. Burkle got a start bagging groceries as a teenager and then made millions investing in grocery stores, culminating in the sale of Fred Meyer to Kroger for about $8 billion in 1999.
Mr. Clinton will act as something of an ambassador for the funds, which be invested primarily in manufacturing, distribution and retail companies, Mr. Burkle said. The former president's duties will include talking to chief executives and local political leaders, at conferences and at "mini-town halls" in communities where Yucaipa hopes to invest.
The former president's participation, Mr. Burkle said, "brings attention and focal point to the funds."
"It's a good thing for him," Mr. Burkle said. "He needs to do some business things."
Mr. Burkle would not disclose the financial arrangements he made with Mr. Clinton but conceded that pay would be based on the performance of the fund. "If the fund makes money, he makes money," Mr. Burkle said.
Mr. Clinton's staff confirmed the appointment in a statement issued this afternoon.
Mr. Burkle is among the nation's wealthiest business executives and is a frequent political donor. According to statistics compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, Mr. Burkle and the Yucaipa Companies he founded in 1986 have contributed more than $1 million to Democrat and Republican entities and candidates in the last four years.
This is not the first such move by a former president or a top member of the Clinton administration. Last November, former Vice President Al Gore became the vice chairman of Metropolitan West Financial, a financial services company that is based in Los Angeles and is run by former Drexel Burnham executives. Industry executives say Metropolitan West, which was little known at the time, gained from that move because it helped put the company on the map.
In 1998, former President George Bush was given stock when he made a speech in Tokyo on behalf of Global Crossing, the Beverly Hills telecommunications company that is now nearly bankrupt. Mr. Bush's shares in Global Crossing, which were given to him instead of an $80,000 speaking fee, were once estimated to be worth $14 million.
"There is nothing wrong with that," said Stephen Hess, a scholar of the presidency at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "But corporate work is tricky because it does come with strings attached."
It is particularly tricky for a president as young as Mr. Clinton, who still has decades left to pursue another career, Mr. Hess said. "Most of the presidents have been old when they retire," he said. "The pay and perks for presidents is recent in American history. The country has changed its attitudes in that way."
Since leaving office, Mr. Clinton has been crisscrossing the globe, making millions on the lecture circuit, while he writes his memoirs.
The two funds started by Yucaipa first got their start last year when the California Public Employees' Retirement System, one of the nation's largest and most influential pension plans, approved a $475 million initiative to invest in blighted urban and rural communities throughout the state. Then retirement system then picked 11 investment firms as partners with the hope it would spur development in areas ignored by venture capitalists.
Yucaipa was allotted $200 million by the retirement system and set up a fund. But Mr. Burkle liked the idea enough to start another fund, the American Fund, which has raised $560 million from state and union pensions.
Mr. Burkle conceded that one reason he is interested in these types of investing is because there are now so many private equity funds that it is hard differentiate one from the next. "For us there are too many people trying to do typical leveraged buyout funds right now," he said. "We think this gives us an edge."
But Samuel Hayes, a finance professor at the Harvard School of Business, said that moving into a new direction could also bring problems.
"I would remind you this has been tried before and it has not always worked out, Professor Hayes said. "They may be doing this to profit, but they are going to have to work for it. "
Yeah, but he wastes a lotta time showing the blonde bimbos how the velcro works...
Heh, heh, heh. Wish I'da said that.
Oh yeah, Hitlery's an investment genius alright......
The consumate bagman, Sick Willie!
And don't forget the bagwoman...Hitlery.....
Liz, when do you think we need to sit down with a major financial reporter and start trying to get him or her tracking the story? Just let me know, I'll make some calls.
And call Roger and the Rodham Boys....if you can drag Hughie away from McDonald's that is.
But, but, but, Miss Marple, you've forgotten, Mr. Clinton doesn't care about money, everybody says so.
Here's the part in this article I find particularly amusing: "It is particularly tricky for a president as young as Mr. Clinton, who still has decades left to pursue another career, Mr. Hess said."
Young? He's a dirty OLD man already. And he's got DECADES left to pursue another career? Hah! He'll be almost 80 years old and drooling as he gums his oatmeal in just one decade.
All you freepers in scumbag's age group: You guys are ageless and look mahvelous, dahlings.
Albore can't seem to be president of anything.
I think that the word was out on the street, and the good retirement fund managers were bailing out before the rest of us found out that Met West was going to pay Goron an outrageous sum just to have his name on their Marquee.
The day after we sold them, the news that Met West had hired Goron who could not even spell nor pronounce bonds came out. He was to get an outrageous salary for not even working. He admitted that he had tried other Wall Street Firms with a wink and a hand shake to get the outrageous pay to build back his campaign chest for a try in 2004. All of the major Wall Street Firms told him to take a hike. His old buddies at Met West decided to buy him him.
This is even worse with the smart criminal, the Clintoon becoming a phoney investment guy.
The people who will get screwed on this will be the people who work for states/counties/cities and their retirement fund has investment in this trash. Since 99.999999999999999% of these people are card carrying Rat voting cult members, so be it!
I haven't read the whole thread yet so this may have been answered, but Burkle is the guy who also gave Jesse Jackson's "girlfriend" Karen Stanford her job.
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