Re big Chicago media:
Focus shifts to Black's wife
Hollinger shareholders want to know if they paid for Amiel's extravagances, couple's posh lifestyle
<<snip>>
And in a 10-page, single-spaced confidential memo written by Trippi and other staffers to Dean on June 11 last year....
Some of those papers were sold for as little as $1 to other companies controlled by Black and David Radler, the former president of Hollinger International and longtime business partner of Black's....
Members of Hollinger International's Advisory Board -- which included political heavy-weights such as Henry Kissinger, Margaret Thatcher and Richard Perle -- were paid between $35,000 and $50,000 to attend annual strategy sessions followed by black-tie galas, according to Hollinger sources....
The guests included such luminaries as former U.S. ambassador Walter Annenberg, conservative author George Will and Thatcher, the former British prime minister.
Total estimated cost to Hollinger: $200,000 for the party plus $300,000 for the personal appearance fees....
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And if evidence is required to sustain the pt. that it is not greed but the quest to "get it all," we have this, quote,
"I have an extravagance that knows no bounds," she told Vogue.
chicagotribune.com
Published January 11, 2004
Barbara Amiel has played many roles in her life: scrappy
political columnist, first woman editor of the Toronto Sun
and leading socialite in London and New York. Now
investigators want to know what role she played in the
alleged wrongdoing at Hollinger International Inc., the
company controlled by her fourth husband, newspaper
magnate Conrad Black.
Amiel is a controlling shareholder, board member and a
corporate officer of Hollinger International. As vice
president of editorial and publishing for Hollinger Inc.,
Amiel took home a salary and bonus of $276,000 in
2002, all of it coming from the Chicago Sun-Times,
according to the company's proxy statement. Amiel also
was paid $29,000 for writing columns that appeared in
London's Daily Telegraph, the company's largest
newspaper.
A special board committee formed to investigate alleged
financial improprieties at Hollinger International has
requested records of Amiel's pay and details of her work,
according to sources close to the matter.
The issue is whether Amiel did any work for her salary
from the Sun-Times. She hasn't set foot in the
Sun-Times building at 401 N. Wabash Ave. in 4 1/2
years, Sun-Times sources say.
A spokesman for the Blacks said Amiel "is involved in
the editorial process at the Sun-Times."
The dollars involved may be small compared with the
millions her husband was pulling out of Hollinger
International, but Amiel's behavior fits the same
disturbing pattern, according to disgruntled
shareholders: treating a publicly held company like a
personal bank account.
"If this was a cow, there wouldn't be an udder that wasn't
sore," said Christopher Browne, managing director of
Tweedy, Browne Co., a large holder of Hollinger
International shares. "Nothing surprises me now."
Committee members also are curious why Amiel isn't
listed as one of the company's five highest-paid
executives in the company's proxy, given that her salary
would rank her as second in pay only to her husband.
The Amiel inquiry is an offshoot of the central
investigation into $32 million in unauthorized
non-compete payments that Black and key lieutenants
made to themselves after selling groups of Hollinger
International newspapers.
Some of those papers were sold for as little as $1 to
other companies controlled by Black and David Radler,
the former president of Hollinger International and
longtime business partner of Black's.
Black resigned as Hollinger International's chief
executive in November when the unauthorized payments
were revealed but remains the company's chairman and
largest shareholder. Radler also resigned. So far,
Amiel's status is unchanged.
Through a spokesman, Amiel declined to be interviewed.
The good life
Amiel and Black live a glittering life, one filled with
couture fashion, chauffeurs at their beck and call and a
list of friends that include the Kissingers, the Buckleys,
Georgette Mosbacher and Donald Trump.
Some shareholders of Hollinger International believe
they are the ones who truly have been paying for the
Blacks' princely lifestyle.
They already have discovered the company was being
billed for unusual things, such as personal servants to
the Blacks and costs related to the Blacks' various
homes.
Now, it turns out they were paying some big names to
boost the celebrity quotient of some of the Blacks' social
events.
Members of Hollinger International's Advisory
Board--which included political heavy-weights such as
Henry Kissinger, Margaret Thatcher and Richard
Perle--were paid between $35,000 and $50,000 to
attend annual strategy sessions followed by black-tie
galas, according to Hollinger sources.
At these lavish affairs, Amiel, renowned for her beauty
and expensive gowns, presided as hostess. In 1995, the
Hollinger gala was held in the Chicago Cultural Center
where a string quartet played and champagne was
plentiful. The guests included such luminaries as former
U.S. ambassador Walter Annenberg, conservative author
George Will and Thatcher, the former British prime
minister.
Total estimated cost to Hollinger: $200,000 for the party
plus $300,000 for the personal appearance fees.
It was a rare Windy City sighting of Amiel, who preferred
to carve her social niche in bigger cities, including New
York.
"I don't even know her," sniffs Ruth Edelman, wife of
publicist Dan Edelman and a longtime regular on
Chicago's black-tie circuit.
So far, the unfolding scandal hasn't damaged the
standing of Amiel in New York society.
"She's very A-list," said Richard Johnson, editor of the
New York Post's gossipy Page 6 column. "The
high-society types in New York are very enamored of
British people. They're all Anglophiles."
Continues @ link above. |
