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Herman Cain's Aquila Dealings Undercut His Business-Acumen Claims
The Daily Beast ^ | 11-21-2011 | Wayne Barrett

Posted on 11/23/2011 8:36:42 PM PST by TitansAFC

Candidate Cain boasts of his skill as a businessman, but while he sat on the board of Aquila, a Midwest energy corporation, the company fell apart, even as Cain helped dole out millions in bonuses to its directors.

...Green maxed out, giving $2,500 to Cain’s campaign committee. Green was the longtime CEO of two related Missouri energy companies whose boards Cain served on for nearly two decades, Utilicorp United and Aquila. And when Green wasn’t running the companies, his brother Robert was. Since 2003, when Cain launched an unsuccessful Senate campaign, the Greens have donated $10,500 to various Cain campaign committees. Other executives at Aquila/Utilicorp and an Aquila PAC added another $12,500, making it one of Cain’s biggest sources of campaign cash.

But that 90-year-old, multistate, publicly owned but family-run conglomerate, with 300,000 Missouri electric customers alone, no longer exists. Now part of longtime rival Kansas City Power and Light, Aquila was acquired in 2008 by the utility’s parent company, Great Plains Energy, paying Aquila shareholders $4.54 a share for stock that peaked at over $37 in 2001. Utilicorp assets were acquired by Black Hills Energy in the same $1.7 billion deal, including the combined company’s natural-gas and electricity properties in four states other than Missouri.

Until its demise, however, Aquila/Utilicorp was a large part of Cain’s business life from 1991 on, while it was transforming itself from a conservative, asset-heavy, international energy company that owned power plants and distribution lines into a merchant energy commodity trader that soared and crashed in a speculative frenzy. The company never recovered from 2001,....

...Aquila later downgraded its 2001 revenue to $3.7 billion, implicitly acknowledging that much of what it and others like Enron did in the energy derivatives market was fantasy trading.

(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...


TOPICS: Government; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2012; aquila; cain; crookinator; gop; graft; knowsnato; taxinator
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1 posted on 11/23/2011 8:36:47 PM PST by TitansAFC
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To: TitansAFC

Ah, a Cain-bashing crusade. Zotworthy? I’ll let the majority decide . . . don’t post too many of these threads; they get tiresome quickly.


2 posted on 11/23/2011 8:38:32 PM PST by Olog-hai
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To: TitansAFC

I want to see the Godfathers numbers.
They aint exactly #1.


3 posted on 11/23/2011 8:39:53 PM PST by mylife (The Roar Of The Masses Could Be Farts)
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To: TitansAFC

Cain has made mistakes. So has every businessman. And here you post nothing but MSM liberal anti-Cain propaganda.


4 posted on 11/23/2011 8:39:57 PM PST by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever)
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To: TitansAFC

Newt Gingrich=Amnesty.
Newt Gingrich=Fannie and Freddie
Newt Gingrich=Cheated on two wives
Newt Gingrich=Adulterer
Newt Gingrich=Cap and Trade with Pelosi


5 posted on 11/23/2011 8:41:35 PM PST by Thunder90 (Fighting for truth and the American way... http://citizensfortruthandtheamericanway.blogspot.com/)
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To: Thunder90

Hmmm....where was Newt Gingrich mentioned in the article?


6 posted on 11/23/2011 8:42:36 PM PST by TitansAFC ("..then propose a reasonable program for the 12 million (illegals) who broke our laws" - Herman Cain)
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To: Thunder90

Please explain 1-5 in greater detail. You support whom BTW.....Obama


7 posted on 11/23/2011 8:45:49 PM PST by eyedigress ((Old storm chaser from the west)?)
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To: TitansAFC

The Daily Beast... Translation the Far Left view of Cain.

The fact that a Newt Gingrich fan pulls a communist site to smear a real conservative tells you everything you need to know.


8 posted on 11/23/2011 8:46:05 PM PST by Sprite518
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To: TitansAFC

This is a pretty weak hit-piece.


9 posted on 11/23/2011 8:46:05 PM PST by AlmaKing
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To: Thunder90

AMEN! Conservatives must know the facts: Gingrich is a sleaze, a liberal and quite frankly a guy who has no business running for President since he pledged not to secure our borders.


10 posted on 11/23/2011 8:46:27 PM PST by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever)
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To: AlmaKing

Like people don’t have sour investments. Our political class has no private sector experience.


11 posted on 11/23/2011 8:47:39 PM PST by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever)
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To: goldstategop

When did he do that.


12 posted on 11/23/2011 8:48:55 PM PST by eyedigress ((Old storm chaser from the west)?)
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To: TitansAFC

Give it up... The cain hating media could not even run with this crap. It has been out there since May....

Apparently you are not able to read well. Best to give you a quiz so you can improve.

1. What was the pension arrangement for employees and did the company match their contributions?

Get back to me when you have the answer. No sooner.


13 posted on 11/23/2011 8:50:04 PM PST by Fred ("The terrorists' want to kill us, so we need to kill them first!" http://hermancain.com)
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To: Fred
Cain was never Aquila’s CEO or chair, so his culpability in the demise of this company is limited.

I read the whole thing and I don't even understand the diluted crap here. And yet, they admit, Cain wasn't the CEO and little, if any, real culpability. It's another smear job campaign.

14 posted on 11/23/2011 8:51:25 PM PST by writer33 (Mark Levin Is The Constitutional Engine Of Conservatism)
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To: TitansAFC

I do disagree with you about Mr. Cain but the attacks on Mr. Gingrich on this thread are suck ass as well.


15 posted on 11/23/2011 8:53:09 PM PST by eyedigress ((Old storm chaser from the west)?)
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To: TitansAFC

seem to remember that environmentalists dealt Aquila fits a few years ago.


16 posted on 11/23/2011 8:53:27 PM PST by stickywillie (ALE)
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To: Olog-hai

I know people who work for Black Hills Energy, which merged with Aquila a few years ago. They’re happy and the company is doing well, stock has recovered nicely.

There is no beef here. Just an attempt to smear Mr. Cain (again).


17 posted on 11/23/2011 8:53:49 PM PST by bigbob
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To: TitansAFC

He wasn’t the CEO of Solyndra or Enron so who cares?

Pray for America


18 posted on 11/23/2011 8:57:02 PM PST by bray (Take the Cain Train off the Plantation)
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To: TitansAFC
Digging up Daily Beast crap? No thanks.
19 posted on 11/23/2011 8:57:21 PM PST by Jane Long (Soli Deo Gloria!)
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To: bigbob

Thanks for the insight. It’s good to hear from sources other than the raging left, e.g., this article..


20 posted on 11/23/2011 8:59:12 PM PST by South40
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