Reply #11: Their history w/ TX companies [View All]

[rainbow4321]

http://www.utwatch.org/utimco/wyly.html

Sam and Charles Wyly introduced the world to Michael's Stores in 1984 with ten stores. The company blossomed into 695 stores in the US and Canada. Sam is a chairman and Charles is Vice Chairman. The conglomerate posted $2.5 billion in revenue at the end of the 2001 fiscal year, and as of March 2002, UTIMCO has $647,405 invested in the company.

Sam, Charles, and Evan were all involved in the Sterling businesses. They all served on the board of directors at each of these software companies. In March of 2000, Sterling Software, Inc. was sold to Computer Associates (the same company who bought University Computers Co), and in a separate but equal occurrence, its spin off company Sterling Commerce Inc. was sold to SBC Communications. Each company was sold for $4 billion. Sam and Charles conveniently had the most amount invested in the latter company when it was sold.


The new Wyly endeavor is Greenmountain.com. A company that started as Green Mountain Power, the "green" energy company has been anything but. Environmental organizations such as GreenPeace and Citizen Watch have contested the practices and advocacy of Greenmountain.com. There are numerous causes for concern for the company, such as increasing pollution and dealing with huge companies such as BP, Nuon NV, and PacifiCorp, one of the dirtiest polluters in the country. The board of directors has Evan Wyly and H. Lee Hobson, a partner at Maverick Capital, Richard Hanlon, a director of the Michael's Stores, and Dennis Crumpler, a former exec at Sterling Commerce. Also, in the late 90's, Sterling Software was paid $6 million to install software for the network at GreenMountain.com.

The Wylys have a strong background in starting companies, remaining on their board of directors, and making friends with their own investment companies. Wyly businesses have a history of dealing with each other as they have illegally made plenty of money; the law turns a blind eye since they know that they can get money from the Wyly family. These are some of the wealthiest and influential men in Texas, gaining their money through questionable ways. But since they have money, they have ties to UT and UTIMCO.