More dirt on the very dirty. Scandals and back alley politics are the Clinton mantra.
Posted on 04/05/2008 9:58:47 PM PDT by kcvl
glaringly missing from the summary was mention of $15 million in fees paid by Burkle's Yucaipa Global Opportunities Fund since 2002
(Excerpt) Read more at weblogs.baltimoresun.com ...
TEAMSTERS (IBT)
Billionaire Clinton Friend, Union Accused of Racketeering
Ron Burkle is a very wealthy man, with a net worth listed last year in Forbes magazine at $2.5 billion. He’s also a close friend of former President Bill Clinton. That relationship is now coming under greater scrutiny given the backdrop of Burkle’s now-successful attempt to buy out a major long-distance car-hauling company, with an able assist from the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. On April 23, investors of Hawk Opportunity Fund sued Burkle’s private-equity company, Yucaipa Companies, in Atlanta federal court, charging Yucaipa and IBT leaders with racketeering in Yucaipa’s takeover of Allied Holdings, Inc., North America’s largest hauler. The plaintiff is demanding $200 million in damages, a figure that could triple under RICO statutes. Yucaipa thinks the case is groundless. “We think that this suit is totally without merit,” said company lawyer Robert Klyman. A Teamsters spokesperson likewise dismissed the suit as having no basis. But the surrounding facts notwithstanding provide a window to the ways in which Hillary Clinton will fund her bid to become the next U.S. President.
http://www.nlpc.org/view.asp?action=viewArticle&aid=2019
Aha! And terry MCAwful got a crapload of $$$ from Global Crossing a few years back; birds of a feather...
Because he could.....
Burkle’s Company Let Ice Intended For Katrina Victims Melt. USA Today wrote, “FEMA’s ice-supply
efforts after Hurricane Katrina became a subject of public questions after truckers who were paid $800 a day
hauled ice from state to state without unloading, then delivered their cargoes to AmeriCold and other storage
facilities as far away from the Gulf Coast as Maine... In a Sept. 20 letter to FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers,
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, chairwoman of the Committee on Homeland Security, sought details about
the costly, circuitous trips. The letter questioned ‘whether the federal government is using relief resources efficiently
in order to provide maximum benefits possible to the victims of Hurricane Katrina.’ Amy Swanstrom, a
spokeswoman for Collins, said agency officials had not yet replied. Ashdown, criticizing FEMA’s handling of
ice distribution after Hurricane Katrina, said AmeriCold ‘was part of the team’ FEMA assembled for the work.
‘The contractors that we had weren’t able to get the job done,’ he said.” [USA TODAY, 10/13/05]
RONALD BURKLE AND THE CLINTONS
RON
The Clinton’s Hypocrisy on Dubai
It’s not just Bill’s $1.2 million Dubai speaking fees that have enriched the Clintons, and its not just the million dollar contribution by the Emir of Dubai to the Clinton Presidential Library that has endeared the Islamic monarchy to them.
It’s much more that that: Bill Clinton was personally responsible for delivering the ruler of Dubai and Prime Minister of the U.A.E., Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, to a partnership with Yucaipa Cos., headed by Bill and Hillary’s uber-fundraiser Ron Burkle.
So Bill Clinton is now an adviser and member of the board of directors of a company that is in partnership with the government of Dubai
“ut the surrounding facts notwithstanding provide a window to the ways in which Hillary Clinton will fund her bid to become the next U.S. President”
I resent the fact that someone would insinuate that Hillary would use ill gotten gain in order to win an election... Shocked... Shocked I tell you!
Burkle is a close friend of former President Bill Clinton, who calls Burkle’s Boeing 757 private jet “Ron Air.”[11] Clinton is employed by Burkle’s investment firm, The Yucaipa Companies. Burkle co-hosted a fundraiser for Hillary Rodham Clinton at his Green Acres Mansion. Burkle and Steve Rattner helped finance Al Gore’s cable Current TV network.[12]
As of May 2007, real estate developer Raffaello Follieri, the boyfriend of actress Anne Hathaway, was being sued by billionaire Ron Burkle for $55 million, an amount which Burkle alleges Follieri and Hathaway spent on a private jet, care for their pet Labrador, and shopping sprees. The money had been intended for a land development project.
Burkle is also a close friend of superstar Michael Jackson[13].
Burkle’s chief of security, Richard Di Sabatino, a private investigator with extensive ties to jailed private investigator Anthony Pellicano
Investments in Cayman Islands tax shelters & Clinton financial dealings
Recent calls for the release of Senator and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and former president Bill Clinton’s tax returns have brought to light the fact that President Clinton is expecting a $20,000,000 payout from Burkle’s supermarket holding company.
Questions raised about the Clinton’s financial dealings with Yupaica include whether or not Bill Clinton has direct investments in the tax shelters, whether he pays full U.S. income tax on the profits from those investments, why the Clintons first claimed the holdings were in Los Angeles and not the Cayman Islands, and how Hillary Clinton, an opponent of offshore tax havens, can rationalize her husband’s alleged offshore business dealings with her public opposition to the practice.
Exclusive
Ron Burkle Has Lady Problems
“I decided to go forward and talk to the IRS about Ron Burkle and all the Machiavellian connections and all the monies and cash exchanged between Ron Burkle and his big buddy Bill Clinton,” she says. Burkle, who likes to fly around on private jets and flirt icky-old-man-style with much younger women has been such a headache for Clinton while his wife is trying to run for President that he had to pretend to cut all ties with the man.
http://gawker.com/5004771/ron-burkle-has-lady-problems
And yet, on Monday, most of the country will continue on, totally oblivious to the information contained in this thread.
Sounds like Anne is a real high maintenance girl.
Because Obama isn't President yet.
Yep...but very little bad press for mcawful and clinton over Global Crossing. But they formed a lynch mob for the Enron execs because he donated to Bush.
The Clintons’ 2006 tax return shows that, through a blind trust, the couple acquired an interest of an undisclosed size in a private investment fund known as the Quellos Alpha Engine, based in the Cayman Islands. At the time, the fund was controlled by the Quellos Group of Seattle, one of the world’s largest managers of mutual funds made up of hedge funds. Hollywood mogul Haim Saban is one of the biggest investors in Quellos and is also one of Hillary Clinton’s most prolific fundraisers.
A 2006 investigation into abusive tax shelters by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations reported that Quellos used offshore shell companies to engage in fake transactions that generated billions of dollars in capital losses on paper. One series of transactions, the report said, erased more than $2 billion in capital gains that would have been taxed, costing the U.S. Treasury hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.
Another hedge fund on the Clinton’s 2006 tax return...
Arden Institutional Advisers, a $13 billion hedge funds
Dear Lord.
Hopefully, these bastards got hammered by the credit crisis and finally got what was coming to them.
Stooge
More dirt on the very dirty. Scandals and back alley politics are the Clinton mantra.
Does Yucaipa have anything to do with “Yucaipa Heep” from Firesign Theater ? ... or is it just innocently named after Yucaipa, CA ?
BTW, how about this: “Burkle and Yucaipa are backing a $100 million deal to take over the Aloha Airlines — but it has attached some very tight strings: It’s making the deal contingent upon terminating the pilots’ pension plan and contract.”
“In the future, so much will be happening that no one will be able to keep track of it all.”
Wah-da-do-dah.
The comments on this blog (at the link) were depressing. The author asked a question: what did Bubba do to obtain $15M from Burkle?
All the ‘Toonbots could say is “poor Hillary; why does everything think they’re always doing something wrong?”
Uh . . .
Besides, what DID Bubba do to obtain $15M from Burkle? Was this money reported as earned income or what?
Yet, read the comments left by Witch supporters at the blog. They believe this is all nothing but trumped up “hatin’.”
They’ll never accept that the ‘Toons actually are sleaze and crooks.
The Clintons have moved up from being small time Arkansas hucksters to world class grifters. However, I expect a very messy divorce once Hillary loses the nomination.
And the reason the Clintons got away with this is...
They are simply doing what other politicians are and have been doing for a long time.
Forcing the tax load down the chain.
Thanks for the info kcvl,here’s a bump.
And, let's not forget the old horn-dog will have nothing to do but this, on the taxpayer's dime, if Hillary is elected!
reports that the White House receptionist was in a sexual tryst with President Clinton, according to Mike McGrath, the White House Butler.
Debra Schiff got her current job as official White House receptionist. Previously, she was an airline stewardess and was assigned to the future President’s campaign flights. She often allowed the President to feel her up while on the plane.
In one incident, another stewardess, Cristy Zercher, allowed the President to grope her for 40 minutes, until a jealous Debra intervened and told the President to go back to his seat.
A flight attendant on Longhorn One, the Clinton campaign plane in 1992. When Clinton took office, the former commercial airline stewardess was appointed the West Wing receptionist, with a desk only a few yards away from the Oval Office. Despite having no training in the languages or protocol required for the job, she was told by a senior Clinton aide that she was hired for her "airborne people skills."
Film footage of Clinton onboard the plane with his hand onboard her knee attest to this. The White House's former chief steward said she locked him in his pantry in 1994 so she could have 20 minutes alone with the president. She denies the allegations.
Result: When the allegations surfaced, the White House announced that Schiff had been transferred to the State Department as assistant chief of protocol under Madeleine Albright (nice pay raise, too).
Debra Schiff
Debra has more than 20 years of event management and protocol experience. Most recently, she served as president of her own event consulting firm, Debra Schiff & Company.
Debra was Assistant Chief of Protocol in the Clinton-Gore Administration coordinating high profile functions for the President, Vice President and Secretary of State.
Prior to her Presidential appointment at the Department of State, she was a member of Oval Office Operations at the White House.
Before moving to our nation's capital, Debra owned an advertising specialty company based in Dallas, Texas.
Clients include:
William Jefferson Clinton Presidental Center
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton for President-Club 44 Festival, Women for Hillary & Holidays with Hillary
******
ABC Entertainment
Benarroch Production-Lions for Lambs
Center for American Progress
Christie’s Great Estates
Ed & Amy Knight-Richardson for President
General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems
Georgetown University Children’s Medical Center
Goldman Sachs
Inter-American Development Bank
International AIDS Trust
Kelly & Sharon Stone
National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship
Motion Picture Association of America
Microsoft Corporation
National Geographic Society
National Multiple Sclerosis Society-National Capital Chapter -MS Ambassador’s Ball
Organization of African First Ladies Against AIDS
Paramount Classics
Post Properties
Quincy Jones Listen Up Foundation
Rodale Inc.
Seeds of Peace
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton for President-Club 44 Festival, Women for Hillary & Holidays with Hillary
Senator Lloyd Bentsen Center for Stroke Research
Square Loop, Inc.
Target
The Albright Group LLC
The Joint Center for Political & Economic Studies
US Ambassador to the Orginization of American States
Washington Tennis & Education Foundation
William Jefferson Clinton Presidental Center
Wine, Women & Shoes
World Vision
WMCA of the USA
Debra Schiff, then
Debra Schiff, now
WHO IS RONBURKLE ? - PENGUINS INVESTOR STEPS OUT OF SHADOWS
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PA) - January 7, 2007
Author: Shelly Anderson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Until recently, if you asked someone who follows the Penguins to identify RonBurkle , they might have guessed he once was one of Mario Lemieux’s linemates or, perhaps, a third-string goaltender.
Not quite.
A scan of the team’s media guide and Web site won’t turn up any reference to Burkle , but you’ll need a few cups of coffee to sift through the results of an Internet search.
After remaining far in the Penguins’ background for more than seven years, the member of the Lemieux Group — likely the largest investor in the team ownership — suddenly has emerged as a part of negotiations that will determine the future of the club.
According to statements issued by the Penguins, Burkle , a California multibillionaire best known for supermarkets, last week joined Lemieux in talks with Kansas City and state and local officials as the club tries to work out a deal for a new home, either in a new Pittsburgh arena or out of town.
Although he rarely grants interviews and has been described as reclusive, Burkle , 54, is well-connected. His friends range from the famous — former President Bill Clinton , pop star Michael Jackson, actor Leonardo DiCaprio — to many average Joes.
“If you saw him walking down the street, you would never know he’s a billionaire,” said Rick Icaza, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers local in California who, in a rare friendly partnering of union and management, amicably worked out contracts with Burkle when Burkle owned the Ralphs and Food4Less grocery store chains on the West Coast.
Burkle is part of a group, which also includes Philip Anschutz, that is trying to get a stadium built and bring the NFL back to Los Angeles.
Anschutz Entertainment Company (AEG) — whose president, Tim Leiweke, owns the Los Angeles Kings and sits on the NHL board of governors — has the contract to operate the Sprint Center in Kansas City, where officials would like to lure an NHL team, perhaps the Penguins.
Burkle is a longtime friend of Lemieux’s.
Icaza, the union boss, doesn’t follow the plight of the Penguins closely, but he said it’s in the team’s favor that Burkle has become more hands-on in negotiations.
“If he has control, I guarantee he’s going to be reasonable,” Icaza said.
“It’s almost impossible to ask a labor representative about a billionaire owner and get something favorable, but that’s what you get with me. He actually negotiated contracts with us himself, which is almost unheard of for a CEO, and those were our best agreements.”
Icaza said that while Burkle is most comfortable in jeans and other casual attire and that seeing him in a tie “makes you think something is up,” he did get to see the opulent lifestyle Burkle enjoys.
“We actually went to his house in Beverly Hills during negotiations,” Icaza said. “The table we sat at was probably more expensive than the house I live in, but like I said, you would never know it from him.”
Burkle isn’t just friends with Clinton ; the famous politician stayed at Burkle ‘s home on most of his visits to California dating to his days as president.
Burkle owns a private jet, a custom Boeing 757 that Clinton reportedly calls “ Ron Air.”
Burkle is a college dropout who parlayed some early stock-market success into a grocery-store empire and has branched out from there.
For someone who deflects attention, Burkle gets plenty, whether it’s for his contentious divorce, his supermodel friends, reports of parties at his 50,000-square foot mansion called Greenacres, or his legal battle with New York Post gossip columnist Jared Paul Stern, who allegedly tried to extort $220,000 from Burkle for more favorable coverage.
Forbes lists Burkle among the 400 richest Americans with a net worth of $2.5 billion.
As a teenager, Burkle started working at grocery store his father managed, Stater Bros. He worked his way up to vice president of parent company Petrolane, then, at 28, got the backing of one of Warren Buffet’s associates to try to make a leveraged buyout of Stater Bros.
He was rebuffed and fired later that day.
“I thought [that morning], ‘I started here as a box boy. I just bought the company. America’s a great place,’” Burkle told Forbes Magazine for a recent cover story. “And in the afternoon, I’m unemployed. It was a rather dramatic change of events, and it turned out to be the best thing ever because if I had stayed there I never would have thought about being entrepreneurial.”
Burkle founded Yucaipa Companies, an investment firm, in 1986 and began acquiring companies, mostly grocers, and grew them by placing stores in ethnic areas other owners ignored and by being worker-friendly. He still owns Pathway, based on the east coast, but sold the Dominick’s chain to Safeway in 1998 for more than $200 million in profits, and sold four other lines to Kroger for $13.5 billion.
Burkle isn’t just interested in supermarkets and sports franchises.
He has donated millions to politicians, mostly Democrats.
He has tried to buy the Tribune Company, which owns the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune newspapers.
He is an investor with the apparel company of hip-hop producer Sean “Diddy” Combs.
He’s an art collector.
He’s a philanthropist, giving millions to Ronald McDonald House, DARE and other charities, and co-chairing the Burkle Center for International Relations at UCLA.
After the Rodney King riots of 1992, Burkle joined the board of Rebuild L.A., but didn’t want credit.
“He said, ‘I’ll do anything I can to help, but I don’t want any publicity,’ “ former Los Angeles deputy mayor Linda Greigo, who ran the organization, told the San Francisco Chronicle.
Publicity finds Burkle anyway. Yet he has remained behind the scenes with the Penguins, until now.
His security team, said one of Mr. Burkle’s associates, includes a former Secret Service agent.
Such well-known investors as George Soros have backed his business deals
He came under the news media microscope in late 2000 for soliciting Mr. Clinton about a possible pardon for Michael Milken, the former junk-bond king and convicted felon
Mr. Burkle, who sits on the boards of the Occidental Petroleum Corporation and Yahoo
Bill Clinton has made millions of dollars just for being friends with Ron Burkle. Back in 2001, Burkle, the supermarket magnate who secretly owns Radar, likes to fly around with models and other young women on his private jet, a pastime Bill has also enjoyed.
it was reported all over the place that Bill was no longer doing business with Burkle. But, as the New York Sun explains, he actually hasn’t stopped a damn thing.
http://gawker.com/359797/burkle-still-bills-best-bud
Bill Clinton And Gina Gershon
We don’t really believe Hollywood’s autumn rumor that the former president, notorious for receiving oral sex in the Oval Office, had entertained an actress on Ron Burkle’s plane. (That was probably just an amalgam of Clinton’s supposed affair with raunchy actress, Gina Gershon, and earlier pictures of the ex-president with girls on the Burklejet.)
http://gawker.com/5002487/bill-clinton-and-gina-gershon
You might wonder why that 2006 Forbes piece about supermarket king Ron Burkle was so gobsmackingly complimentary when the man himself isn’t known to be all that nice. Here’s why! “Burkle’s spin doctor Mike Sitrick worked out a deal for them to go easy in exchange for the otherwise reclusive billionaire speaking at Forbes’ 2nd annual MEET Conference last month..”
http://gawker.com/news/ron-burkle/
Page Six’s latest revenge on their emasculator, mogul and probably Radar-investor Ron Burkle: revealing that he’s been letting Michael Jackson stay at his house. [Page Six]
Slate’s Mickey Kaus thinks that supermarket billionaire Ron Burkle’s scheme to Source Interlink (he is the majority shareholder, and by the way, that stock is so deep in the toilet) with American Media Inc. gives the Clintons control of that company’s tabloids.
Poor supermarket mogul, Clinton pal and alleged Radar investor Ron Burkle can’t go anywhere without getting extorted. Today’s Page Six and Rush & Molloy both report that Chevyn McClintock, an antiques dealer or interior decorator depending on who you ask, is shopping a memoir about her two-year affair with Burkle.
http://gawker.com/news/ron-burkle/
The Daily News reports that Grappi met Burkle when she decorated his Beverly Hills residence. McClintock’s website mentions the “historic Greenacres estate” among the “notable interior environments” she’s been responsible for
Kate Hudson was once again spotted candying up the arm of fug supermarket billionaire Ron Burkle. [R&M, fourth item]
The Clinton Mafia cannot be too pleased by today’s piece in the Wall Street Journal, which follows the money from Bill Clinton to his aide Doug Band to Raffaello Follieri, who is a Vatican hanger-on and the man-squire to Anne Hathaway.
Introduced to the Clintons through Band, pretty Follieri seems to have somehow convinced them he could deliver Catholic votes in 2008, based on his long-standing connections to the Vatic—whoops. No. Oh, okay, maybe it was family’s upstanding business reputation in Italy—never mind, we don’t know how he pulled it off either.
President Clinton got suckered to the tune of $100 million, though, which he and his galpal Ron Burkle invested in Follieri’s scheme to redevelop Catholic properties so the Church could take care of some minor financial issues. All in the hopes that next year, all those compensated Catholic voters would turn out in droves for Hillary.
Unfortunately, Follieri decided to spend the cash on $40,000-a-month penthouses for himself and Hathaway.
More...
What's ARDEN??? WHo is behind them?
Actually, Ken Lay was MUCH closer to Clinton than he was to Bush. He stayed in Clintons White House.
Billionaires generally have big houses. Burkle , 53, resides at Green Acres, one of the grandest, most storied super-mansions in Beverly Hills and one of Southern California's best-known party houses.
Billionaires often have private jets at their beck and call. Burkle has a Boeing 757 with its own bedroom suite.
And billionaires certainly attract famous friends. One of Burkle ‘s closest pals is former President Bill Clinton, who heads a group of high-flying politicians with whom he is close.
In the realm of scandals, too, Burkle , who made his billions from California supermarket chains, now appears to be in a league of his own. He is not just quarreling with the New York Post's catty gossip bible, Page Six — a favorite billionaire sport — he is engaged in the Desert Storm of publicity wars with the newspaper, alleging that the paper has acted improperly.
Secret tape
After enduring what he has said was a string of inaccurate items, published over the last year, Burkle said he had had enough. When a Post gossip writer, Jared Paul Stern, said he could help improve the former supermarket tycoon's coverage, Burkle set up a meeting and secretly videotaped Stern — with federal law enforcement officials reportedly monitoring the process — apparently trying to extort $220,000 in return for favorable publicity. At least that's how Burkle describes the encounter, which has sent a titillating rush through gossip pages and newspapers across the country.
But if Burkle and his phalanx of publicists and lawyers thought the “gotcha!” — quickly leaked to newspapers — would quiet the baying hounds, he overestimated his clout, at least in the big leagues of scandal. For a man who says he is just trying to protect his privacy, Burkle has just invited a torrent of even greater scrutiny.
Stern is unbowed; he says the video was a trap and that he was seeking an investment in a clothing company not a bribe. And Stern, who has been suspended by the Post but was recently the guest editor for Gawker, a gossipy Web site, and Page Six have continued to attack Burkle with undisguised glee.
They have insinuated, for instance, that Burkle , who is divorced, and Clinton were first introduced by a “lovely young lady;” that Burkle carefully avoided sitting next to some beautiful models at a Lionel Ritchie concert recently to conceal his womanizing; and that another mansion of his, in La Jolla (San Diego County), is a love nest.
Burkle did not return calls requesting comment. But for many people who have known Burkle for years and done business with him, this unseemly spectacle is an inexplicable paradox. Several described him as a surprisingly low-key, civic-minded businessman who got ahead by treating his workers well.
“He's probably the best employer we ever dealt with,” said Ricardo Icaza, president of the Los Angeles local of the United Food and Commercial Workers union, who negotiated a number of labor contracts with Burkle when the billionaire owned supermarket chains like Ralphs and Food 4 Less. “I have done a lot of things with him and he never looked for publicity. Never. You'd never suspect he's a billionaire.”
Indeed, Burkle has marched with the United Farm Workers and has long been a friend to the unions, which have given him many awards. Most recently, Burkle and his Yucaipa Cos. spearheaded a bid for the 12 Knight Ridder papers put up for sale by McClatchy Co. in March. The bid was backed by the union representing workers at many of those papers.
Newspaper bid
After last week's sale of four of the papers to rival bidder MediaNews Group, Yucaipa reportedly is still interested in pursuing the remaining eight papers on the block, which include the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News.
Burkle is rarely seen wearing anything other than blue jeans and black shirts, and, according to friends, can put greater effort into avoiding publicity than courting it.
Nonetheless, Burkle enjoys the wealth he has accumulated as one of California's most successful entrepreneurs, particularly as a single man often seen in the company of celebrities, models like Gisele Bundchen and other attractive young women.
He has also gained some notoriety because of the litigation in his messy divorce from his former wife, Janet. It was extensively covered in the Los Angeles Business Journal before the records were sealed.
Among the disclosures were that he reportedly had a private investigator follow and harass his ex-wife and her personal-trainer boyfriend — allegations Burkle has denied — and that he won a lawsuit filed by his 30-year-old daughter, Carrie, who claimed he owed her money taken from an investment fund.
Burkle has given millions of dollars to politicians and carefully cultivated close relationships with leaders up and down the state, including Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
On April 21, he held a fundraiser at Green Acres for Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y. Clinton's husband, meanwhile, sits on the board of Burkle ‘s investment company, the Yucaipa Cos., and reportedly shares in the profits of successful investments.
Burkle is also close with Bay Area power brokers, like former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown and former state Sen. John Burton. “All I know him to be is a very decent guy,” said Burton, who described Burkle as unassuming and earnest in his efforts to use his wealth to help working-class people. “He remembers where he came from.”
Yet, according to those who know him, Burkle almost never seems to discuss politics or to seek special access or favors from the influential people he works so hard to befriend.
Linda Griego, a former Los Angeles deputy mayor, ran Rebuild LA, the organization that sought to rehabilitate the devastated inner city after the Rodney King riots in 1992. Burkle joined the board at her request and was enormously helpful, she said, making but one demand in return.
“He said, ‘I'll do anything I can to help, but I don't want any publicity,’ “ Griego recalled.
In the spotlight
With the Page Six imbroglio, that image of a powerful man with a low-key personality has now been turned on its head. The man feted as AFL-CIO humanitarian of the year and the Los Angeles County Boy Scouts Jimmy Stewart person of the year, and who is the namesake of the Burkle Center for International Relations at UCLA — to mention but a few of his honors — is known on Gawker’s salacious Web site and on Page Six as the “greasy grocer,” “babe-loving billionaire,” “paunchy merchant prince” and, perhaps most hurtful of all, “evil rich guy.”
The claims have generally focused on his alleged womanizing and his supposed hypocrisy in claiming he hates publicity.
The one instance many cite when Burkle appears to have tried to throw his weight around — though he has denied it — is a bill in the state Legislature criticized by many legal and First Amendment rights groups that would make it easier to seal the records in divorce cases. Critics of Burkle point out that the records in his divorce have been temporarily sealed at his request until the legal issues are resolved and appeals concluded.
Burkle also reportedly sought a pardon from Clinton in 2000 for a close friend, former junk bond king Michael Milken. The effort failed.
Burkle was raised in Claremont, a quiet town in suburban San Bernardino County. His father was an executive at the Stater Bros. supermarket chain and Burkle , armed with nothing more than a high school diploma, started at the stores as a bag boy, said Frank Quintero, Burkle ‘s political adviser and the son of a Glendale City Council member.
Burkle worked his way up through the ranks until, as a senior executive, he tried to lead a leveraged buyout of the chain. He failed and was fired in 1986.
But, Quintero said, he won the support of the group that had offered financing for the attempted buyout, including Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway, and other financiers in the company's circle. Burkle eventually became a close friend and affiliate of Milken and with his help assembled a California supermarket empire.
He eventually sold the chains, including Alpha Beta, Ralphs and Food 4 Less, to Kroger for nearly $13 billion in 1999. Previously, he bought Chicago's Dominick's chain and sold it to Safeway for $1.2 billion, earning himself and his investors enormous returns.
But he has had poor investments, too. He reportedly lost money in online ventures with former Hollywood super-agent Michael Ovitz. Several online companies went nowhere — including search engine Scour.Net, CheckOut.com, which sold entertainment, and GameSpy Industries Inc. for online gamers. Burkle and Ovitz also failed in a high-profile campaign to win a professional football franchise for Los Angeles. Burkle operates his businesses through a series of private investment funds under his main vehicle, the Yucaipa Cos. He owns interests in two supermarket chains, Wild Oats, based in Colorado, and Pathmark, concentrated on the East Coast. He is also a part owner of the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey team and a major investor in rap mogul Sean Combs’ Sean John clothing company. His investment company recently acquired Garrard, the famous British jewelry company.
And despite his penchant for privacy and modesty, some of his activities seem to offer social prominence. A board member of the Getty Trust and other museums, he's a major collector of everything from old Masters to post-Impressionist works.
Even some of his friends look at the contrast between such ostentatious displays of wealth and the more down-to-earth image Burkle tries to cultivate and scratch their heads.
“We went to his house once when we were negotiating a labor contract and I couldn't believe what an affluent person he is,” said Icaza, the union leader. “But he never acted like he was one of those billionaires you read about. I don't understand all this stuff you hear now. “ -———————————————————————
RonBurkle
Age: 53
Born: Claremont, San Bernardino County
Business triumphs: Sold Alpha Beta, Ralphs and Food 4 Less chains to Kroger for nearly $13 billion in 1999. Sold Dominick's to Safeway for $1.2 billion. Current investor in P. Diddy’s Sean John clothing line and part-owner of the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Business failures: Backed several dot-bombs including the Scour.Net search engine and the CheckOut.com entertainment site. Also failed to win a professional football franchise to replace the Rams.
Stephen Bing, left, with Ron Burkle and Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton, with his arm around a 19-year-old NYUer named Rachel, photographed on Ron Burkle's private plane.
Green Acres, the lavish former Harold Lloyd estate now owned by supermarket mogul Ron Burkle.
Clinton already has visited twice in preparation for her March 24 gala, which will be at the Beverly Hills home of Ron Burkle. Tickets are $4,600 for a VIP reception and dinner, and $2,300 just for the dinner. (The campaign is raising money both for the primary and the general election). The chairs of Clinton's event are Burkle, Cheryl and Haim Saban, Steve Bing, Debra and Sim Farar and Daphna and Richard Ziman. Co-chairs are Susan and Scott Corwin, Kimberly Marteau and John Emerson, Carol Hamilton and David Khon, Norman Hsu, Noah Mamet, Lisa and Brad Mindlin, Jane and Marc Nathanson, Eric Smidt and Laura and Casey Wasserman.
The host committee includes Eileen Austen, Jacqueline and Clarence Avant, Irv Bauman, Carol and Frank Biondi, Katie Buckland, Michel Chagouri, Lissa and Adam Chesnoff, Laura Chick, Bruce Cohen, Aileen Adams and Geoff Cowan, Gray and Sharon Davis, Alex De Ocampo, Tal Finney, Leah and Sam Fischer, Earl Gales, Chad Griffin, Laura Hartigan, Yashar Hedayat, Amy and Andy Heyward, Ruth Hunter and Sean Daniel, Marta Kauffman, Skip Keesal, Michael Kives, Toni Holt and Robert Kramer, Jennifer Long, Paul Marciano, Leah Mendelsohn, Tom O'Gara, Debra Olson, Richard Park, Kelly and Jamie Patricof, Rashel Pouri, Teddie and Michael Ray, Lynda and Stewart Resnick, Aviva and Dan Rosenthal, Lila Sadafi, Diane Lander Simon, Ari Swiller, Beverly Thomas, Sherri and Stanley Toy, William Wardlaw, Brian Weinstein and Denita and Anthony Willoughby. (March 14, 2007)
Burkle's La Jolla pleasure dome
The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating the missing amounts in a New York-based hedge fund.
The question of what happened to the funds of Arden Capital Management, a hedge fund founded by Francis Saldutti, a L.F. Rothschild & Co. former analyst, is still veiled in obscurity. In April 2003 NorthShore Asset Management, a Chicago investment company, bought the fund from Mr. Saldutti who had at least 80% of the fund’s holdings in cash.
Hedge funds usually invest in money-market funds or other short-term investments, and the investors can easily get it out of the fund when investment opportunities come up. But some investors found their money inaccessible as Mr. Saldutti insists that money was stolen.
******
Francis J. Saldutti has served as a Director of the Corporation sinceNovember 1990. Mr. Saldutti has been a general partner of Ardent ResearchPartners, L.P., a technology focused money management partnership, since
April 1992 and was a senior technology analyst at Amerindo Investment Advisors,an investment firm, from October 1989 through February 1995. Prior to
October 1989, Mr. Saldutti was Senior Vice President and Director of Research
for Gartner Securities, Director of Technology Research for LF Rothschild,
Unterberg, Towbin, an investment banking firm, and senior technology analyst for
Merrill Lynch Asset Management’s Science/Technology Fund.
February 24, 2007 — IT isn’t just presidential politics that has David Geffen bad-mouthing Sen. Hillary Clinton and throwing his support behind Sen. Barack Obama.
Sources say the diminutive movie mogul is motivated by jealousy because his old friend Bill Clinton now prefers the company of supermarket billionaire Ron Burkle. Geffen’s animosity is also fueled by Burkle’s attempt to buy the Los Angeles Times, which Geffen had wanted to purchase for himself.
“It’s all about Bill Clinton’s relationship with Burkle, and it all started because Burkle went after the Los Angeles Times,” said one West Coast source. “Geffen is on a jihad right now.”
Bill Clinton used to stay at Geffen’s mansion (once owned by Jack Warner), but now he stays at Burkle’s estate (the former home of silent film star Harold Lloyd) whenever he’s in town.
The former president is also a partner in Burkle’s Yucaipa Companies, which buys and invests in various ventures. While the exact arrangements have never been disclosed, it is believed that Clinton could earn many millions of dollars from his relationship with Burkle.
Insiders say Geffen - a billionaire who started in the music industry and co-founded DreamWorks with Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg - moved quickly to host a fund-raiser for Obama when he learned that an L.A. event for Hillary Clinton had been scheduled.
Then, Geffen went public, calling Bill a “reckless guy” and Hillary an “incredibly polarizing figure.” “Everybody in politics lies, but they [the Clintons] do it with such ease, it’s troubling,” Geffen said.
Hillary’s camp demanded that Obama renounce Geffen and return his campaign contributions. “They all look really stupid,” said one politically connected Californian. “It’s hurting the Democratic Party nationwide.”
Another Democratic source scoffed at Geffen’s explanation for his disenchantment with Bill Clinton, attributing it to Clinton’s pardon of tax fugitive Marc Rich while failing to pardon American Indian activist Leonard Peltier, who was convicted of murdering two FBI agents.
“I never believed the pardon was the issue,” said this politico. “Geffen is looking for a platform. He’s frustrated and bitter. He’s got all these billions, but he’s still trying to prove his relevance.”
Burkle Bond’s Hard To Break
SO much for reports that Bill and Hillary Clinton were trying to distance themselves from Ron Burkle. The Beverly Hills billionaire has been named one of the five national finance chairs for Hillary’s presidential campaign, sources say. Earlier this month, it was reported Bill Clinton was severing his partnerships in Burkle’s Yucaipa Companies and walking away with $20 million. The thinking was that Burkle’s wheeling and dealing, with interests in Dubai and in real estate divested by the Vatican, could result in conflicts of interest and hand ammunition to Hillary’s political opponents. Plus, there was concern over the bachelor Burkle’s fondness for young women. “Maybe it’s harder to get away from Burkle than they thought,” laughed one Democrat. The other four Clinton finance chairs are said to be Alan Patricof, Maureen White, Hassan Nemazee and Chris Korge.
(January 29, 2008)
So where is Clinton involved in Arden....I’m not seeing it.
Check out their tax returns. They are posted on Hillary’s website.
Burkle plays Milburn Drysdale to Clinton’s Jed Clampett.
What’s that got to do with ARDEN??
Another hedge fund on the Clinton’s 2006 tax return...
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