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Bill Clinton's Midas Touch
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hillarynews
Joined: 24 Jan 2007
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 Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 4:00 am Post subject: Bill Clinton's Midas Touch |
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 Bill Clinton's Midas Touch
By Andrew ZajacIn December 2004, former President Bill Clinton made a much-publicized appearance at a launch party in New York for Accoona, a new Internet search engine billing itself as a rival to Google.Clinton's presence at the gathering at Tavern on the Green in Central Park was a coup for the unheralded, privately held Accoona, which paid for the former president's appearance by issuing options for 200,000 shares of stock to Clinton's charity, the William J. Clinton Foundation. In 2006, the Clinton Foundation sold the shares for $700,000.
Category: Top Story
By Andrew ZajacIn December 2004, former President Bill Clinton made a much-publicized appearance at a launch party in New York for Accoona, a new Internet search engine billing itself as a rival to Google.Clinton's presence at the gathering at Tavern on the Green in Central Park was a coup for the unheralded, privately held Accoona, which paid for the former president's appearance by issuing options for 200,000 shares of stock to Clinton's charity, the William J. Clinton Foundation. In 2006, the Clinton Foundation sold the shares for $700,000.Clinton's presence at the gathering at Tavern on the Green in Central Park was a coup for the unheralded, privately held Accoona, which paid for the former president's appearance by issuing options for 200,000 shares of stock to Clinton's charity, the William J. Clinton Foundation. In 2006, the Clinton Foundation sold the shares for $700,000.Another celebrity hired by Accoona, Russian chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov, did not fare as well. Kasparov also was paid in stock options, but his agent said he has not exercised them because his financial advisers told him last year that the shares were worth less than their $1 option exercise price.The Clinton Foundation's good fortune with Accoona stock is among several lucrative transactions involving the former president's personal and charitable finances. Since leaving office in 2001, Clinton has wiped out millions of dollars in legal bills and become a multimillionaire through a brisk schedule of speechmaking and book-writing, as well as a pair of consulting and investing agreements that have yielded as-yet-undisclosed sums.Clinton also raised more than $362 million for his foundation through 2006 and secured pledges for billions more.Interest in Clinton's financial dealings has intensified since Hillary Clinton lent her presidential campaign $5 million in January. She has been asked in nationally televised debates whether she would disclose tax returns or persuade the former president to release information about his charitable pursuits.But evaluating the transactions is difficult because both Clintons, while complying with legal filing requirements, have somewhat limited disclosure of their finances.With respect to the Accoona stock, for example, Clinton's foundation reported the sale of shares for $700,000 on its 2006 IRS-mandated financial statement for tax-exempt organizations. But the foundation was not legally required to report the initial receipt of Accoona shares, and it did not do so.The foundation also declined to disclose to whom it sold the stock. "The foundation sold its shares through a broker in 2006," Clinton Foundation spokesman Ben Yarrow said in an e-mail.Accoona's chief financial officer, William Rose, also declined to disclose the buyer or to give the stock's current value. Accoona did not buy back the stock and the buyer had no connection to his firm "that I'm aware of," Rose said Monday.Valuing shares in privately held start-ups can be difficult because they often don't have an earnings track record and the price sometimes is pegged to the hope of future earnings based on announcements of promising partnerships or technology.Speaking generally, James Schrager, a professor of entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, said, "When you have a political figure involved, many times the terms are arranged in advance."The $700,000 the Clinton Foundation received for its stock is more than four times the $150,000 Clinton typically commands for appearances in the New York area. The amount startled Kasparov's agent, Owen Williams, who said he regrets not setting different terms for his client's appearance.Williams declined to say how many options Kasparov received but said the chess champion and one-time Russian presidential candidate was advised last year that exercising them "was not a good expenditure of Garry's money. ... Our financial guy said, `You will not make money buying those shares at $1.' ... He didn't exercise his options."
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Source: The Hillary Project
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