UTIMCO oks 51 m bonuses
EXCERPT:
UTIMCO board passes $5.1M bonuses
Austin Business Journal - by Staff Reports
Date: Tuesday, November 9, 2010, 2:25pm CST Related:
Banking & Financial Services, Education

The University of Texas Investment Management Co. (UTIMCO) has reportedly passed about $5.1 million in bonuses, including the maximum allowed for CEO Bruce Zimmerman.

The University of Texas’ endowment fund board approved bonuses during their regular meeting Tuesday morning. Zimmerman, who also acts as the fund's chief investment officer, was awarded $1.15 million bonus, while the rest was divided among about 30 other employees.

Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst Inc.
EXCERPT:
Firms that paid fees to firms affiliated with Mr. Morris included some of Wall Street’s best-known names, including the Carlyle Group and HM Capital, formerly known as Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst. Both have already reached settlements with Mr. Cuomo’s office.

Mr. Morris also rewarded top officials in the comptroller’s office, including David Loglisci, the former chief investment officer. Mr. Morris invested $100,000 in an independent film, “Chooch,” produced by Mr. Loglisci’s brother; a company controlled by Mr. Rattner’s firm, the Quadrangle Group, distributed “Chooch.”

“You couldn’t make this up,” Mr. Cuomo said at the time of Mr. Morris’s indictment in March 2009.

Your democratic scandal scorecard
EXCERPT:
SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D., CALIF.): Introduced legislation to steer $25 billion to the FDIC, days after before CB Richard Ellis Group, a commercial real-estate firm headed by her husband, Richard Blum, won the competitive bidding for a contract to sell foreclosed properties that the FDIC had inherited from failed banks. As the Washington Times noted, Feinstein is not a member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, which has jurisdiction over the FDIC; and the agency is supposed to operate from money it raises from bank-paid insurance payments — not direct federal dollars. (UPDATE: The legislation was introduced before the contract was awarded to CB Richard Ellis Group. See Feinstein office response below.)

URS and 9/11
World Trade Center gets manager: URS / S.F engineering firm to oversee construction November 05, 2005|By David R. Baker, Chronicle Staff Writer
San Francisco engineering company URS Corp. will oversee perhaps the most visible and politically sensitive construction job in the United States -- building the new World Trade Center.

A joint venture between URS and Parsons Brinckerhoff will serve as construction manager on the project, which will include five towers, a transportation hub and a memorial to those who died in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the original center. The New York Times reported the company's involvement Friday.

URS and Parsons Brinckerhoff scandal
EXCERPT:
Taken for a Ride:
Parsons Brinckerhoff Expose

By Tara Servatius
The last time two of the consultants overseeing Mecklenburg County's light rail and mass transit plan worked on a large-scale project together, they were responsible for an 80-foot sinkhole, thousands of lawsuits totaling over $1 billion, and a trail of fraud and corruption so long that even the FBI couldn't untangle it. Now they're advising Charlotte Area Transit Officials on our transit plan and helping to design it.

The two design, construction and engineering firms, Parsons Brinckerhoff Quade & Douglas, Parsons Transportation Corp., and their smaller business units are directly responsible for projects widely regarded as the biggest transit debacles in the nation's history. Both have stark histories of deceiving the public and government officials about the true costs of transit projects, and then benefiting directly from project cost overruns.

These histories are alarming enough to call into question every figure, fact and cost estimate ever given to the voters and elected officials of Charlotte-Mecklenburg by these companies. And it's enough to make one wonder why the Metropolitan Transit Commission and Charlotte City Council approved consultant contracts with them in the first place.

Members of the MTC we spoke to say they were unaware of the companies' past scandals, but are determined to get answers from Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS) CEO Ron Tober. CATS spokespersons said no one there was aware of the companies' past scandals when the contracts were proposed. It's still unclear who did background checks on the companies. (See "What They're Saying" sidebar.)

Dianne Feinstein and URS
EXCERPT:
January 24-30, 2007
Senator Feinstein's Iraq Conflict
As a member of the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee, Sen. Feinstein voted for appropriations worth billions to her husband's firms

By Peter Byrne

IN THE November 2006 election, the voters demanded congressional ethics reform. And so, the newly appointed chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., is now duly in charge of regulating the ethical behavior of her colleagues. But for many years, Feinstein has been beset by her own ethical conflict of interest, say congressional ethics experts.

As chairperson and ranking member of the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee (MILCON) from 2001 through the end of 2005, Feinstein supervised the appropriation of billions of dollars a year for specific military construction projects. Two defense contractors whose interests were largely controlled by her husband, financier Richard C. Blum, benefited from decisions made by Feinstein as leader of this powerful subcommittee.

Each year, MILCON's members decide which military construction projects will be funded from a roster proposed by the Department of Defense. Contracts to build these specific projects are subsequently awarded to such major defense contractors as Halliburton, Fluor, Parsons, Louis Berger, URS Corporation and Perini Corporation. From 1997 through the end of 2005, with Feinstein's knowledge, Blum was a majority owner of both URS Corp. and Perini Corp.

While setting MILCON agendas for many years, Feinstein, 73, supervised her own staff of military construction experts as they carefully examined the details of each proposal. She lobbied Pentagon officials in public hearings to support defense projects that she favored, some of which already were or subsequently became URS or Perini contracts. From 2001 to 2005, URS earned $792 million from military construction and environmental cleanup projects approved by MILCON; Perini earned $759 million from such MILCON projects.

Dianne Feinstein resigns MILCON following Metro expose, vet-care scandal
By Peter Byrne

SEN. Dianne Feinstein has resigned from the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee. As previously and extensively reviewed in these pages, Feinstein was chairperson and ranking member of MILCON for six years, during which time she had a conflict of interest due to her husband Richard C. Blum's ownership of two major defense contractors, who were awarded billions of dollars for military construction projects approved by Feinstein.

As MILCON leader, Feinstein relished the details of military construction, even micromanaging one project at the level of its sewer design. She regularly took junkets to military bases around the world to inspect construction projects, some of which were contracted to her husband's companies, Perini Corp. and URS Corp.

Perhaps she resigned from MILCON because she could not take the heat generated by Metro's expose of her ethics (which was partially funded by the Investigative Fund of the Nation Institute). Or was her work on the subcommittee finished because Blum divested ownership of his military construction and advanced weapons manufacturing firms in late 2005?

The MILCON subcommittee is not only in charge of supervising military construction, it also oversees "quality of life" issues for veterans, which includes building housing for military families and operating hospitals and clinics for wounded soldiers. Perhaps Feinstein is trying to disassociate herself from MILCON's incredible failure to provide decent medical care for wounded soldiers.

Two years ago, before the Washington Post became belatedly involved, the online magazine Salon.com exposed the horrors of deficient medical care for Iraq war veterans. While leading MILCON, Feinstein had ample warning of the medical-care meltdown. But she was not proactive on veteran's affairs.

Feinstein abandoned MILCON as her ethical problems were surfacing in the media, and as it was becoming clear that her subcommittee left grievously wounded veterans to rot while her family was profiting from the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. It turns out that Blum also holds large investments in companies that were selling medical equipment and supplies and real estate leases—often without the benefit of competitive bidding—to the Department of Veterans Affairs, even as the system of medical care for veterans collapsed on his wife's watch.

As of December 2006, according to SEC filings and www.fedspending.org, three corporations in which Blum's financial entities own a total of $1 billion in stock won considerable favor from the budgets of the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs:

•Boston Scientific Corporation: $17.8 million for medical equipment and supplies; 85 percent of contracts awarded without benefit of competition.

•Kinetic Concepts Inc.: $12 million, medical equipment and supplies; 28 percent noncompetitively awarded.

•CB Richard Ellis: The Blum-controlled international real estate firm holds congressionally funded contracts to lease office space to the Department of Veterans Affairs. It also is involved in redeveloping military bases turned over to the private sector.

You would think that, considering all the money Feinstein's family has pocketed by waging global warfare while ignoring the plight of wounded American soldiers, she would show a smidgeon of shame and resign from the entire Senate, not just a subcommittee. Conversely, you'd think she might stick around MILCON to try and fix the medical-care disaster she helped to engineer for the vets who were suckered into fighting her and Bush's panoply of unjust wars.

Feinstein and Blum's finances increased considerably
The Byrne Report
Hawk Tale

By Peter Byrne
ON JAN. 18, California senator Dianne Feinstein introduced Dr. Condoleezza Rice at a Senate nomination hearing for Secretary of State in terms so saccharine that molasses seemed to ooze out of her mouth. She was a precocious child, Feinstein purred. She has skill, judgment and poise. She loves football. Bush loves her. "The problems we face abroad are complex and sizable. If Dr. Rice's past performance is any indication, though, we can rest easy."

That very same day, Feinstein's husband, Richard Blum, took advantage of a spike in the price of his URS Corporation stock. He sold a third of his holdings in the defense contractor for $57 million, according to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. With Rice confirmed, the business of death and occupation looks rosy as hell for Feinstein, who--let's get real--benefits tremendously from sharing community property with Blum.

URS' largest customer is the U.S. Army, which accounted for 17 percent ($587 million) of its cash revenue in 2004. In 2001, URS enjoyed a mere $169 million in defense contracts. Now, its war contracts total more than $2 billion. According to its annual report, the San FranciscoÐbased URS anticipates that profits will rocket up in 2005, because "operations in the Middle East are expected to generate increased work related to the development of weapons systems, the training of military pilots and the maintenance, upgrade and repair of military vehicles." Provided, of course, that our hawkish leadership remains as poised and lovable as the new Secretary of State.

Feinstein, who sits on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, is an advocate of first-strike warfare, even though it flouts international law and the standards of common decency. Interestingly, her Financial Disclosure Report for 2003 was more than three times the size of her 2002 disclosure (Feinstein's 2003 disclosure numbers 133 pages, compared to Sen. Barbara Boxer's six-page report). The Feinstein-Blum portfolio is crammed with multimillion dollar investments in the military-industrial-financial complex and corporations that heavily exploit Third World peoples. The senator has a lot to lose should the neoconservative war machine falter.

Hubby holds a controlling interest in another engineering firm, Perini Corporation of Framingham, Mass. Perini ranks No. 6 by dollar amount in war-related government contracts in the Middle East. According to its annual report, "Perini proudly supports the U.S. government with global rapid response capabilities for defense, reconstruction and security." Perini builds military facilities and roads in Afghanistan, electrical infrastructure in Iraq and U.S. embassies around the world.

After the Senate, Feinstein included, approved Bush's war plans in 2002, Perini's defense contract awards soared from negligible to $2.52 billion. But, as with many of the sole-source, open-ended contracts awarded to politically connected firms, there are problems with accountability. Last summer, Department of Defense auditors determined that Perini could not adequately justify its costs in Iraq as fair and reasonable. That's government-speak for: They're gouging the #!$% out of us.

Perini is heavily engaged in military and municipal public works projects inside the United States; at least two are also under investigation for contract fraud. For example, the city of San Francisco has sued general contractor Perini--which was in a joint venture with the Tutor-Saliba construction firm--for $100 million in cost overruns at a San Francisco International Airport project. The lawsuit alleges that the joint venture engaged in "a sophisticated pattern of fraud," including inflating costs, fabricating delays and setting up minority front companies to exploit affirmative-action preferences. The attorney general of Massachusetts is looking into alleged false claims made by a Perini joint venture in the "Big Dig" urban highway construction boondoggle in Boston.

Ron Tutor, owner of Tutor-Saliba and CEO of Perini, bought into the latter company, along with Blum, as it teetered on the edge of solvency in the mid- 1990s due to a bad real estate investment. It rebounded, thanks to the firm's sudden ability to obtain lucrative U.S. military and government contracts, which, of course, had nothing to do with the fact that Blum's powerful wife has her hands on the military's purse strings. Remarkably, Perini grossed $1.37 billion in 2003, up 27 percent from the previous year, before the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Perini attributes its rocketing profits to "increased volume of work in Iraq and Afghanistan." As a risk factor, the firm notes that continued demand for its military services depends upon "the political situation in Iraq," which, logically, means that it desires the bloody war and useless occupation to continue indefinitely--a wish that hawktails with the foreign policy positions of Bush, Rice, Rumsfeld and Feinstein.

I almost forgot: Perini Corp. is the nation's most active builder of Indian-fronted casinos. That explains a few things about Sen. Feinstein and the politics of gambling, soon to be revealed in greater detail in this space.

Black people used as fronts in Tutor Saliba deals
EXCERPT:
S.F. airport contractor Tutor-Saliba accused of creating minority fronts
Patrick Hoge / Chronicle 21nov 00

San Francisco -- The largest builder at San Francisco's $2.9 billion airport expansion used two African American contractors as figureheads in bogus minority-owned companies to win contracts, the contractors told officials who oversee the city's affirmative action program.

Once the giant Tutor-Saliba Corp. won contracts that included work the city wanted to go to nonwhite builders, the company colluded with white subcontractors to sideline the two minority contractors, the men said. One of the men said a Tutor-Saliba official arranged for his company to get a $100, 000 payoff for dropping out of contracts worth nearly $11 million.

more
EXCERPT:
Through the use of slurry walls, where liquid is poured into a hole to harden, engineers have managed to support the elevated highway while cutting away its support beams to remove the dirt underneath. The designers and engineers of the joint venture--called B/PB--are San Francisco's Bechtel Corp. and New York City's Parsons Brinckerhoff Quade & Douglas Inc.


Richard Blum siphons off public money
EXCERPT:
The most prominent among this cadre has been Richard Blum. As we detailed in our last CounterPunch article, Blum's five-decade career as a finance capitalist has been distinguished by the levels of skill and panache he has applied to the time-honored task of siphoning off public money into one's own corporate coffers, as well as those of one's financial and political allies. Blum, who is married to US Senator Dianne Feinstein, is one of the leading power-brokers in the Democratic Party within both California and the United States.

Notably, it was Blum who virtually hand-picked President Yudof for UC President, having chaired the selection committee that oversaw Yudof's appointment. At a March 2008 press conference heralding the Yudof hiring, the San Francisco Chronicle noted that Blum seemed “visibly ecstatic.” In April, the Chronicle quoted Blum again, saying of Yudof, "we disagree on almost nothing. If I were giving Mark a grade, I would give him an A-plus.”

Bush and UTIMCO
EXCERPT:
A Tale from Texas - with Lessons for California

The University of California Board of Regents has appointed David H. Russ as its new treasurer and vice president for investments, replacing Patricia A. Small, who resigned (was pushed out) from that position last August. Russ was previously a managing director for the University of Texas Investment Management Company (UTIMCO).

Out of curiosity I asked google to search this organizational name and found the following fascinating story about UTIMCO. ( http://www.tpj.org/pioneers/r_hicks.html ) This piece was written by Texans for Public Justice, a "non-partisan, non-profit policy and research organization which tracks the influence of money in politics." This is one of a series of sketches about the Bush Pioneers, individuals who raised large amounts of money for the 2000 Presidential campaign of the former Texas Governor.

R. Steven Hicks and his brother Tom both founded major radio companies that merged in '99 into AMFM, Inc. After Clear Channel Communications devoured AMFM later that year, Tom Hicks became its vice chair. Tom Hicks made Bush a millionaire 15 times over when he bought the Texas Rangers in '99. Just as local taxpayers enhanced the value of Bush's Rangers by paying $135 million for their stadium, Hicks and Ross Perot, Jr. got Dallas taxpayers to spend $125 million on a stadium for their Dallas Stars and Mavericks in '98. Tom Hicks heads the corporate raider firm Hicks Muse Tate & Furst (Bush's No. 4 career patron). Hicks Muse long wanted to tap the $13-billion University of Texas (UT) endowment for its takeover deals. As Bush assumed office in '95, Hicks was confirmed as a University of Texas Regent and hired lobbyists to push a bill creating the UT Investment Management Co. (UTIMCO). With Hicks as its first chair, UTIMCO began doling out contracts to private investment firms to manage portions of the endowment. A scandal blew up when the media discovered that UTIMCO awarded many of these lucrative contracts to firms tied to Hicks and Bush - including one that former President Bush reportedly owns a piece of. The UTIMCO board doling out these contracts included Clear Channel Chair L. Lowry Mays and the Pioneers Tom Loeffler, A.W. Riter, and A. R. Sanchez. Ed Bass and Pioneer Charles Wyly owned two firms that landed some of these contracts.