The president who slammed the door on welfare finds his own brand for much bigger stakes. Feh!
chicagotribune.com
Bill Clinton’s Midas touch
Stock deal benefiting his foundation among shrouded successes
By Andrew Zajac
WASHINGTON BUREAU
March 4, 2008
WASHINGTON
In December 2004, former President Bill Clinton made a much-publicized appearance at a launch party in New York for Accoona, a new Internet search engine billing itself as a rival to Google.
Clinton’s presence at the gathering at Tavern on the Green in Central Park was a coup for the unheralded, privately held Accoona, which paid for the former president’s appearance by issuing options for 200,000 shares of stock to Clinton’s charity, the William J. Clinton Foundation. In 2006, the Clinton Foundation sold the shares for $700,000.
Another celebrity hired by Accoona, Russian chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov, did not fare as well. Kasparov also was paid in stock options, but his agent said he has not exercised them because his financial advisers told him last year that the shares were worth less than their $1 option exercise price.
The Clinton Foundation’s good fortune with Accoona stock is among several lucrative transactions involving the former president’s personal and charitable finances. Since leaving office in 2001, Clinton has wiped out millions of dollars in legal bills and become a multimillionaire through a brisk schedule of speechmaking and book-writing, as well as a pair of consulting and investing agreements that have yielded as-yet-undisclosed sums.
Clinton also raised more than $362million for his foundation through 2006 and secured pledges for billions more.
Interest in Clinton’s financial dealings has intensified since Hillary Clinton lent her presidential campaign $5 million in January. She has been asked in nationally televised debates whether she would disclose tax returns or persuade the former president to release information about his charitable pursuits.
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Read ‘em and weep, Pilgrim!
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Images: (original illustration) by K.Y. Craft from a book as told by Charlotte Craft via harpercollinschildrens.com; (Bill) Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images via New York Times.com; (Hill) via news.filefront.com; (cards) royalworldcasino.com; (stocks) via valleywag.com