N. Bush's foreign business deals draw
spotlight: Role of president's brother in transactions detailed in
documents tied to divorce
sunspot.net
By Walter F. Roche Jr.
Sun Staff
Originally published December 30, 2003
Neil Bush, brother of the president and son of the
former president, earned nearly $1.4 million in 2000
and nearly half of it came from simply introducing the
executives of a Thailand-based conglomerate to the
executives of a U.S. company that makes computer
components.
The introduction, which led to a $20 million investment
in the U.S. company, is one of several high-stakes
international business deals that President Bush's
younger brother has been involved in over the past few
years, according to court and corporate records.
Neil Bush, 48, the second-youngest son of former
President George Bush, has chosen not to join the
family business of politics, but to some he seems to
have parlayed the family name into a lucrative private
enterprise.
While most multinational business deals are made
behind the scenes, Neil Bush's role in several major
transactions and other financial business is detailed in
a lengthy court document relating to his stormy divorce
this year from Sharon Bush.
In the document, Neil Bush plays down his business
successes and gives no indication that any of his deals
were the result of political ties.
"I consider it a success that I made ... ends meet," he
testified. "We live in a very nice home. Our kids have a
good lifestyle."
Pressed further by Marshall D. Brown, Sharon Bush's
attorney, to explain his worldwide business
connections, Neil Bush pointed to his degree in
business administration from Tulane University.
In one situation brought up in the proceedings, Neil
Bush acknowledged that he was being paid about
$60,000 a year by a company called Crest Investment,
where he said he served as "co-chairman."
Asked by Brown what his duties were at Crest, Neil
Bush said he provided "miscellaneous consulting
services, such as answering phone call[s]." He said he
spent about three or four hours a week to earn the
$60,000 from Crest.
Steven Weiss, a spokesman for the Center for
Responsive Politics, a public watchdog group, said that
making a connection with the president's brother was
"an obvious way to develop a relationship that could
lead to the president himself."
But as the president's brother, Weiss said, "Neil Bush
ought to recognize that his business dealings are going
to be scrutinized for any improprieties."
Headlines in '92
Neil Bush made headlines during his father's tenure in
1992 when he agreed to pay $50,000 to settle a civil
suit related to the billion-dollar collapse of the Silverado
Savings & Loan Association. He served on Silverado's
board of directors and was accused of failing to disclose
his business ties to two of the bank's largest debtors.
Now the head of an educational computer software firm,
Ignite Inc., Neil Bush has been back in the news
because of his divorce from Sharon Bush, who is
publicly contesting the terms of their settlement.
Contacted by phone at his business office in Austin,
Texas, Neil Bush declined to answer any questions. He
did not respond to a series of e-mail questions.
Neil Bush is not the first presidential relative involved in
foreign business dealings. Billy Carter registered as an
agent of the Libyan government during the tenure of
his brother, Jimmy Carter. He also disclosed that he
had received a $220,000 loan from Libyan partners.
In a deposition taken March 3 as part of his divorce
case, Neil Bush said he earned $642,000 from the deal
that paired U.S.-based Kopin Corp. investors with the
CP (Charoen Pokphand) Group, an Asian firm headed
by Dhanin Chearavanont.
The CP Group, a huge agricultural conglomerate, is
involved in such businesses as aquaculture,
telecommunications and motorcycle manufacturing. It
was also a 40 percent partner in a company that owned
a Thailand toy factory that was destroyed by fire in
1993, killing 188 workers, according to a report by Kroll
Associates, a private investigation and risk assessment
company. The blaze, which also injured 469 workers,
has been labeled the world's worst industrial fire.
"We made introduction of the Asian group to Kopin and
they ended up investing a significant amount of money
in Kopin," Neil Bush said in his deposition. "I believe it
was in excess of $20 million. They're in Hong Kong and
Thailand."
Investors in Bush's firm
Two CP Group officers were also investors in Neil Bush's
own investment company, owning half the shares.
His investment company, called Interlink, operated out
of Suite 920 at 10000 Memorial Drive in Houston. Just
steps away is Suite 900, where his father, the former
president, maintains an office.
Texas corporate records show that two CP Group officers
were shareholders in Interlink, which Neil Bush set up
several years ago with a partner, Timothy Bridgewater.
Bridgewater did not respond to a request for comment.
Those CP Group officials, Thanakorn Seriburi and
Krisada Kampanatsanyakorn, together held 500 shares
in Interlink, the Texas records show. The remaining 500
shares were evenly split between Neil Bush and
Bridgewater.
Working through Interlink, Neil Bush has helped
arrange investment backing in other financial deals.
He pulled in a $488,567 fee in 2000 for work finding
investors for a Pennsylvania firm called Lithium
Technologies, which is developing batteries for laptop
computers, according to the deposition transcript.
"As part of my [work] with Interlink Management
Corporation we raised money for Lithium Technology
Corp. through a partnership that we established," he
testified.
Alicia Perry, a spokeswoman for Lithium Technology,
said Neil Bush and his company were engaged in 1997
to arrange a $5.5 million equity offering. She said the
company fully disclosed the arrangement in filings with
the Securities and Exchange Commission. She said Neil
Bush has no current affiliation with the firm.
The firm's 1998 filings with the SEC showed Interlink
and an affiliated company called Lithium Link
controlling 21,875,138 shares of stock, which totaled a
little more than 50 percent of all the shares issued at
that time.
Neil Bush testified that he earned $105,649 through
Interlink in 2001 for work done for Covol Technologies,
an energy firm.
In another deal involving the CP Group detailed in the
deposition, Neil Bush said he arranged for a joint
venture between CP and Cole Real Estate Development,
a California firm. He testified that he received stock in
the joint venture as his fee but contended that he never
received any monetary payment.
Interlink, he testified, also provided consulting services
to Advanced Paint and Chemical, a firm that also had a
partnership arrangement with the CP Group. Under
questioning, Neil Bush said that he received 12,500
shares of stock for his work for Advanced but that the
shares were now worthless.
Another Interlink client, records show, is
computer-related Universal Display of New Jersey,
which on its Web site lists Interlink as its Taiwan
representative. The Universal relationship was not
mentioned during the deposition.
Neil Bush testified that he received a $60,000 payment
from Interlink in 2001 and that he was then wrapping
up his work as an active partner with the company.
CP Group is fined
A year after Neil Bush became embroiled in the
Silverado collapse, the CP Group encountered problems
of its own.
In the toy factory fire, the company was subsequently
fined for safety violations.
The CP Group and its partner in the factory, Kader
Industrial, denied responsibility for the tragedy, but
Kader alleged that CP Group was responsible for the
management and operation of the factory, according to
Kroll Associates officials.
The partners eventually paid families of the victims
about $8,000 each, according to the International
Federation of Free Trade Unions. The payments from
the joint venture came after a series of protest
demonstrations.
Other big-money deals detailed in the 270-page
deposition include a two-page agreement dated Aug. 15
last year, under which Neil Bush could earn stock
valued at $2 million over five years for serving on the
board of directors of Grace Semiconductor
Manufacturing Corp., a Chinese firm.
The Grace contract was signed by Winston Wong, who
also is an investor in Neil Bush's latest business
venture, Ignite Inc., which sells computer programs to
school districts. Based in Shanghai, Grace was founded
by Wong and Jiang Mianheng, the son of former
Chinese President Jiang Zemin.
Neil Bush described Wong as "a friend of mine" but
added that he didn't know if he ever would collect the
fees promised under his contract.
Asked whether he had extensive knowledge of
semiconductors, Neil Bush said, "No, I don't. But I know
a lot about business and I've been working in Asia quite
a long time."
Despite the substantial income he reported and
acknowledged in 2000, Neil Bush testified that he has
few assets and his income is limited to $180,000 a year
in salary from Ignite Inc.
He said much of the nearly $1.4 million he earned in
2000 went to taxes, while the rest went into other
investments that lost money. Taxes, according to
records in the divorce case, totaled $485,000 for 2000.
"We invested a big, big piece of it that has subsequently
gone down in the toilet with the stock market," he said. |
