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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (176031)	8/30/2001 11:35:35 AM
From: puborectalis	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

For Jacobs, Conseco may be a black eye. But AremisSoft is a gaping wound. Jacobs, the Pohlad family and associates appear to have invested more than $70 million in the software firm. The money is now at risk if allegations prove true that the company's international operation was largely a front for Cyprus mobsters. Jacobs says he was stunned and pained by the unraveling of AremisSoft. "I'd still like to see a great business come out of this," Jacob said. "But obviously I'm disappointed. "There's always stress when you lose money. What bothers me is the other people. Carl Pohlad wouldn't have done this without me." Jacobs supported AremisSoft executives who now are targets of a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) probe. And Jacobs' Internet exhortations (http://www.irwinljacobs.com ) might get him snagged in the SEC inquiry, or expose him to suits by those who invested because of his rosy pronouncements, legal experts say. Rocker Partners and other short sellers, whom Jacobs referred to as "slime" and "criminal," also are considering suit. "Irwin has apparently done little actual research on AremisSoft," said David Rocker, managing general partner of Rocker Partners, a 32-year-old, $650 million asset investment firm in New York. "His investment philosophy seems to rely on bullying. He did that with managements in his earlier days ...and now he is doing it with legitimate short sellers who seem to have done a better job analyzing this company." Jacobs will not talk about why he defended AremisSoft so mightily this summer, even as detractors were shooting holes in management's stories in May and June. "This is so hurtful to me," Jacobs said last week. "When people aren't honest ... unfortunately this is not going to just fade away. People should know about it, and the story eventually will come out." When it does, count on Jacobs to offer his opinion about what went wrong. -- Staff writer Dee DePass contributed to this report. Neal St. Anthony can be reached at 612-673-7144 or Nstanthony@startribune.com.