Thursday, December 11, 2014

Jeb Bush... (*SIGH*) Rhymes With (*CRY*)



Granted... I hated Jeb Bush prior to reading Joshua Green's latest piece...

Anyway... you can access the full article via Bloomberg New's Bloomberg Politics.

*  *  *  *  *  *

Over the last several months, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush has been giving speeches, campaigning for candidates, appearing at public forums, and meeting with wealthy donors, which has led many people to believe that he may soon enter the race to become the next Republican presidential nominee.

* GOD SAVE THE GOP FROM ANOTHER BUSH...

Bush’s recent business ventures reveal that he shares a number of liabilities with the last nominee, Mitt Romney, whose career in private equity proved so politically damaging that it sunk his candidacy.

Documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Nov. 27 list Bush as chairman and manager of a new offshore private equity fund, BH Global Aviation, which raised $61 million in September, largely from foreign investors.

* CRONY CAPITALISM UBER ALLES...

In November the fund ­incorporated in the United Kingdom and Wales - a structure several independent finance lawyers say that operates like a tax haven by allowing overseas investors to avoid U.S. taxes and regulations.

(*SIGH*)

BH Global Aviation is one of at least three such funds Bush has launched in less than two years through his Coral Gables, Fla., company, Britton Hill Holdings.

He’s also chairman of a $26 million fund, BH Logistics, established in April with backing from a Chinese conglomerate...

* COMMUNIST CHINA OR TAIWAN? (OH... WHO CARES; NEITHER WOULD BE GOOD!)

...and a $40 million fund involved in shale oil exploration...

* BETTER...

* GOOD IN FACT!

His flurry of ventures doesn’t suggest someone preparing to run for president...

(*KNEELING IN PRAYER OF THANKS*)

Bush declined to be interviewed for this article.

(*SMIRK*)

Bush’s newest fund, BH Global Aviation, is his largest and most complicated. It deepens his financial ties to China and [specifically] Hainan Province.

Controlled by Bush through a U.S. holding company, it’s set up to receive money from foreign investors.

The Nov. 27 SEC filing states that 98% of BH Global Aviation’s funding, or $60,883,500, comes from “non-U.S. persons.”

Typically, a fund’s managers kick in 2%, which probably explains the 2% from U.S. investors. Recent U.K. filings show an identical 98% of the fund’s capital ($60,883,500) coming from an entity called “Oak Tree Investment LLC,” with the remaining 2% from seven U.S.-based investors or companies... including Britton Hill.

(Oak Tree appears to house Bush’s foreign investors. In July an “Oak Tree Investment, LLC” was incorporated in Delaware, which allows it to hide the identities of its managers and investors.)

The handful of the fund’s investors who are disclosed provide a globe spanning snapshot of Bush’s financial universe.

One, Armando Olivera, was chief executive officer of the electric utility Florida Power & Light when Bush was governor. In 2009, Bush publicly pushed for a rate increase that would benefit Olivera.

Another is Guang Yang, CEO of Finergy Capital, a Beijing-based private equity fund. In 2010, Yang joined with Hainan Airlines to acquire the Pasadera Country Club and golf course in Monterey, Calif. Yang renamed it for his limited partner Jack Nicklaus. Last year the Monterey Herald noted that what is now the Nicklaus Club Monterey “has been acting as a hub for U.S.-Chinese business relations.”

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