Jeb Bush and Lehman Brothers: He's got a big problem.

[seafan]

Jeb Bush's Rush to Make Money May Be Hurdle, NYT, from April 20, 2014:

Mr. Bush left public office seven years ago with a net worth of $1.3 million and an unapologetic determination to expand his wealth, telling friends that his finances had suffered during his time in government.

But his efforts to capitalize on his résumé and reputation have thrust him into situations that may prove challenging to explain should he mount a Republican campaign for the White House. Records and interviews show, for example, that Mr. Bush participated in the fevered, last-ditch efforts to prop up Lehman Brothers, a Wall Street bank weighed down by toxic mortgage-backed securities. As a paid adviser to the company in the summer of 2008, he met with Carlos Slim Helú, a Mexican billionaire, as Lehman sought to persuade Mr. Slim to make a sizable investment in the firm, emails show.

.....

....(Bush) has earned millions from his work as an adviser to Lehman Brothers and Barclays, the company that took much of the bank over, according to executives familiar with his arrangements. Today, his pay from Barclays exceeds $1 million a year, these people said.

Mr. Bush declined to be interviewed.

.....

Within a year of departing the Statehouse, he had signed on as consultant to Lehman Brothers, where he was eventually enlisted to reach out to Mr. Slim in a plan code-named Project Verde. Mr. Slim, however, was not interested in making a major investment in Lehman Brothers or striking up a joint venture with it. “Project Verde was unsuccessful,” Mr. Bush wrote to a Lehman colleague in early July 2008.

Lehman executives talked openly about the value of Mr. Bush’s family connections in the midst of the crisis. Lehman’s chief executive, Richard S. Fuld Jr., discussed the possibility of having Mr. Bush ask his brother President Bush to persuade the British prime minister to allow Lehman’s emergency merger with a British bank, according to testimony from the company’s bankruptcy case. Mr. Fuld never followed through, and Mr. Bush did not call the president, a spokeswoman for him said.

.....

The Daily Beast shines even more light on his activities at Lehman.

July 2, 2015

.....

Not much is known about what Bush actually did for Lehman—the firm that went belly-up in 2008 and sparked the wider financial crisis, and Barclays, the bank that purchased Lehman out of bankruptcy and continues to work out of its midtown Manhattan headquarters. He began working for the former after his term as Florida governor ended in 2007, and continued working for the latter until the end of 2014, when he decided to run for president.

The two banks were his biggest sources of income in recent years: Bush earned more than $14 million working for Lehman and then Barclays, which based on my understanding of simple math accounted for nearly half of the $29 million he made after he left government. Yet in Tuesday’s disclosure, and even in many of his public comments, Bush has downplayed his work for the two banks.

“I also was hired as a senior advisor to Barclays where I advised their clients on a wide range of global economic issues with a mind towards navigating government policies,” he writes in an essay that accompanied the tax returns. It is the only sentence that refers to his time at Barclays. And he doesn’t mention Lehman at all.

In recent weeks I’ve interviewed numerous Wall Street executives about Jeb Bush, and his role at both firms. What emerges is a portrait of a bank “adviser” who operated more like a high-level investment banker.

A spokeswoman for Bush declined to provide specifics about his work for the banks other than point to various media accounts, including those by this reporter. But Bush, according to people with direct knowledge of his activities, helped the firm look for business from well-heeled clients, including everyone from hedge funds to billionaire investors like Carlos Slim Helu, the Mexican business magnate widely regarded as the world’s richest man.

.....

One investment banker who has direct knowledge of Bush’s work for Lehman and Barclays says over the past seven years, the former governor has had “dozens and dozens and dozens” such meetings with clients and prospective clients of Lehman and Barclays. One of those clients included Slim, the Mexican billionaire, which looms as one of the most controversial aspects of Bush’s private business dealings. This is because, if accurate, it shows how closely Bush worked with Lehman officials during the firm’s final days.

According to former Lehman executives and various news reports, Bush met with Slim to ask him to make an investment in the firm in the summer of 2008. The investment never happened, and Lehman, famously, filed for bankruptcy in September of that year.

Bush campaign spokeswoman Kristy Campbell seems to deny at least some of this account. “Governor Bush met with Carlos Slim. It was regarding a specific telecom project,” she said in an email. “It was not regarding (a) general Carlos Slim infusion of cash to save Lehman Brothers.”

She would not deny, however, that this investment could in some way have helped prop up Lehman Brothers. In fact, Campbell also refused to outright deny past media reports, including this one in The New York Times, which cites emails explaining how Bush was involved something called “Project Verde,” a firm-wide effort to get an investment from Slim and potentially help save Lehman from collapse in 2008.

Indeed, former Lehman executives say senior executives at the firm had discussed using Bush as a direct conduit to policymakers—including those reporting to his brother, who was president during the financial crisis—as Lehman was sinking further into insolvency and regulators balked at including the firm in their broader bailout packages.

Campbell says Bush never intervened with people reporting to his brother. “I do want to be very explicit on one point: Governor Bush was never asked to contact his brother’s administration regarding Lehman, and if he had been asked, would not have done it,” she said in an email.

.....

Wonder if Ms. Campbell is tiring of sounding like a broken record.. Note that she carefully says the he 'was never asked' to intervene--- so, as the micromanager that we know he is, did he intervene?


From the London Times, September 21, 2008: (requires login--- DU link here)

STAFF at Lehman’s New York office who helped to cause the world’s biggest corporate bankruptcy are to share in a $2.5 billion bonanza.

The bonus, which has been described by London staff as a “scandal” has been pledged by Barclays Capital, the British-based bank that last week acquired Lehman’s American operation and took on 10,000 staff.

The $2.5 billion (£1.4 billion) pot, which has been ring-fenced as part of the acquisition, has caused huge resentment among the 5,000 staff in the firm’s European and Middle Eastern operations who are not guaranteed to be paid after this month. There are, however, hopes that half the jobs in Lehman’s Canary Wharf office could be saved today by either Barclays or Nomura. Bids are being submitted for its UK equities and investment-banking business.

Anyone doubt that Jeb Bush was an even happier man that day?


With Lehman and Barclays paying Jeb Bush nearly half of the $29 million he has collected since he left the Florida governor's office in 2007, it would seem prudent to examine his role at Lehman and exactly what he was doing there to pocket such enormous sums of money. And as a candidate for president, he must be subjected to full disclosure of these facts. The media is also charged with demanding these answers and providing them to the voters.


It's becoming clearer by the day, the sustained effort Jeb Bush invests in downplaying his "adviser" role at Lehman, and he expends considerable energy redirecting attention away from his activities prior to Lehman's collapse. So, instead, he's carpet bombing us with 33 years of his tax returns to obfuscate the process. The squid ejects his ink.

Why is that?

We want to know what he did at Lehman Brothers.

Here is a good place to begin.

Forbes: Jeb Bush involvement with Lehman raises questions in Florida investment fund debacle, November 30, 2007

We demand these answers. And doubly so for Floridians.

[merrily]

1. Of course, Jeb would never have considered asking his brother for any favors to further

Jeb's career. Just like Florida Governor Bush would never have done his brother any favors to further his brother Georgie's career. No one should dare question Jeb's questionable ethics!

Clearly, no one in that family uses their power to help any other family member. Four generations of government power/wealth accumulation, from Samuel to Poppy's sons? Pure coincidence. Done on merit, all of it. Just like Dimson's staying out of the draft, then going AWOL with impunity. Any average George gets away with that stuff. Even any below average George. And any below average George can also become Preznit, all on his own. That's the best part of America!

Bushs, using the connections of family members? Nah. Never!

[Solly Mack]

2. Bad business and shady business deals didn't hurt his brother any.

and I'm not talking Neil "Silverado Savings and Loan" Bush either.

It's a family legacy to make shady business deals.

[calimary]

3. Oh, let's HOPE he has a big problem!

I am ALL for that!!!

[brer cat]

4. He was "intellectually stimulating" the Lehman/Barclays clients.

Surely we don't need to know any more than that?

[Roland99]

5. Seems rather tenuous. Something that will, of course, be summarily ignored by the "liberal" media

[Ilsa]

6. Even Gru would agree that he's nefarious:

[bigwillq]

7. No more Bush, please (nt)

[anobserver2]

8. Re the Daily Beast link you posted

I just think this part, below, from that link should be in bold -- that he allegedly collected more than $14 million from working at two banks since he left government.

How did he do that? is what the writer is asking. I think that is a good question to ask. Glad you posted this article:

"The two banks were his biggest sources of income in recent years: Bush earned more than $14 million working for Lehman and then Barclays, which based on my understanding of simple math accounted for nearly half of the $29 million he made after he left government. Yet in Tuesday’s disclosure, and even in many of his public comments, Bush has downplayed his work for the two banks."

[seafan]

9. It should raise red flags that half of his $29 million take was from Lehman & Barclays.

Just what in blue blazes did he do for them?

But large chunks of our 'media' are quite happy to ignore it.

Thanks for pointing this out, anobserver2.