7-6-20 Strategic consultancies tend to blur corporate and governmental roles. This obscure corner of Washington is critical to understanding how a President Joe Biden would conduct foreign policy. He has been picking top advisers from this shadowy world....At the outset of a new administration, high-ranking officials often join one of a dozen such firms, which are surprisingly bipartisan in their makeup, to help companies navigate the areas where their relationships give them power. The model was pioneered by Henry Kissinger, who through Kissinger Associates represented American Express and Coca-Cola, among other banks and transnationals. In Beijing, Washington and developing countries, strategic consultants help corporations manage tricky regulations, potential crises and new markets. Their behind-the-scenes work in world capitals can look a lot like lobbying. https://prospect.org/world/how-biden-foreign-policy-team-got-rich/
......................................................................
11-28-20 Pine Island Capital Partners lists former Under Secretary of Defense
Antony Blinken as a partner on a leave of absence. Flournoy and Austin are reportedly among the leading candidates being considered for Secretary of Defense, and Blinken is Biden’s designated nominee for Secretary of State. Pine Island’s chairman is John Thain, the former top executive at Merrill Lynch when the company paid out huge executive bonuses as it began to collapse during the financial crisis. Flournoy and Blinken’s ties to Pine Island were first reported by The American Prospect.
In Securities and Exchange Commission filings, Pine Island describes one of its investment vehicles as “a newly organized blank check company incorporated in Delaware” that will use its connections to top officials to take advantage of rising government expenditures on the national security agencies that Flournoy and Blinken could oversee. Pine Island’s first filings about the investment vehicle were made in September--the same month Biden suggested that he will not push for significant reductions in Pentagon expenditures, which have reached record levels.
“The reputations and networks of Pine Island Capital Partners’ team, both individually and collectively, will ensure exposure to a significant number of proprietary opportunities,” the company said in one SEC document. “We believe there will be increased demand in the U.S. defense market for advanced electronics, communications, sensor and detection processing and other technologies that enhance the modernization efforts of the Department of Defense’s military readiness. We believe this demand represents strong growth that our management team is uniquely positioned to capitalize on given our combined investment experience and deeply connected partner group of former U.S. defense and government officials.”
The company says Thain and CEO Philip Cooper founded the firm “on the idea that a talented group of accomplished, highly respected, commercially-savvy and long-tenured former government and military officials, when fully aligned and engaged, could enable a first class investment team with better access, better information, better expertise and better management skills than those typically found in private equity firms.”
"This is so explicit that it's astonishing Pine Island even put it on paper,” said David Segal of Demand Progress, a grassroots group pressing Biden to reject Cabinet appointments tied to corporations. “This is not an example of people who happen to work at a big company — these are partners at a firm whose stated business model is to profit from the revolving door and connections gained from time in government.”…
“Pine Island Capital Partners spends the majority of its time focused in the aerospace, defense and government services sectors, where Pine Island Capital Partners believes it has extensive connections to industry leaders, unusual access to information, and often unique insights into specific companies, programs and overall market dynamics,” the company declares. “The reputations and networks of Pine Island Capital Partners’ team, both individually and collectively, will ensure exposure to a significant number of proprietary opportunities.” Pine Island also says that it expects to profit off the COVID pandemic in its potential investments in government information technology services. https://www.dailyposter.com/p/breaking-potential-biden-officials
…….................................................
A SPAC is a shell company with no actual commercial operations and is often created solely for raising capital to help a company go public without going through the traditional IPO process. Because SPACs have no previous operations or financial data to access, their track record depends on the reputation of the management teams….One of the apparent appealing concepts about Pine Island is its team members, who include experienced financial and governmental leaders. Its chairman is John Thain, CEO of Merrill Lynch before its merger with Bank of America. He also was once the chief executive of CIT Group. Pine Island Capital Partners’ managing partner is Phil Cooper, a former Goldman Sachs executive and CEO of the SPAC….
Beyond Blinken and Austin, the website lists others who have ties to Biden and the leadership of the Democratic Party. There are also D.C. partners with links to the Republican Party. Michele Flournoy, who was reportedly being considered to be Biden’s choice for Secretary of Defense and was undersecretary of Defense for policy under President Barack Obama, is listed as one of the D.C. partners. Capricia Marshall, who has ties to the Obama administration, along with Bill and Hillary Clinton, is also a partner. Former Democratic House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt is also a partner. The firm’s portfolio includes Precinmac and InVeris, two companies with ties to the aerospace and defense industries. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/09/spac-with-ties-to-biden-cabinet-picks-sees-surge-in-wall-street-support.html
…….................................................
Biden’s National Economic Council director will be Brian Deese, most recently the head of sustainable investing at asset manager BlackRock. https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/19/elizabeth-warren-private-equity-459813
No comments:
Post a Comment