Excerpt:
Bain Capital
From SourceWatch
Bain Capital is a private equity and venture capital firm founded by Mitt Romney in 1984. It has holdings in Domino's Pizza, pharmaceutical group Warner Chilcott, Toys "R" Us, sportswear distributor Broder Bros., and SunGard Data Systems. Bain Capital, along with Thomas H. Lee Partners, made a nearly $20 billion offer for broadcasting giant Clear Channel, and with another group purchased for $33 billion HCA, the largest for-profit hospital chain in the U.S. [1] [2]http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2010/12/23/buyout-backed-hospital-chain-refiles-for-i-p-o/
Excerpt:
I.P.O./Offerings
HCA Files for $4.6 Billion I.P.O.
By CHRIS V. NICHOLSON8:07 a.m. | Updated
HCA, the hospital operator bought by Bain Capital and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts in 2006, on Wednesday filed for an initial public offering.
The giant hospital chain has been busy lately, announcing last month that it would issue $1.53 billion in junk bonds to finance an additional $2 billion in dividends, as its owners tap into the easy capital in the high-yield market.
The company filed for an initial public offering in May. Because of the November recapitalization, HCA pulled the earlier filing on Thursday.
HCA, the hospital operator bought by Bain Capital and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts in 2006, on Wednesday filed for an initial public offering.
The giant hospital chain has been busy lately, announcing last month that it would issue $1.53 billion in junk bonds to finance an additional $2 billion in dividends, as its owners tap into the easy capital in the high-yield market.
The company filed for an initial public offering in May. Because of the November recapitalization, HCA pulled the earlier filing on Thursday.
http://www.thedeal.com/newsweekly/annual-energy-review/team-green-kkr-carlyle-partner.php
Excerpt:
Private equity's affinity for green can now be expanded to include the environment. In separate partnerships, Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Co. and The Carlyle Group are working with the Environmental Defense Fund to cut costs at their portfolio companies through environmental innovation. And it seems other PE firms might follow their lead. Watch the video below or download it on iTunes.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Environmental_Defense_Fund
Excerpt:
History
An article in In These Times described the beginnings of Environmental Defense:"Created in 1967 by a small band of lawyers seeking to ban DDT, EDF [Environmental Defense Fund] evolved into George Bush's favorite environmental group. The group is the premier advocate of market-oriented solutions to environmental problems. EDF was a cheerleader for NAFTA, and gets excited about pollution credits, emissions trading systems and user fees for recreational use of public lands. It hosts the Barbra Streisand Chair of Environmental Studies, the perch of scientist Michael Oppenheimer, who advocates buying up development rights in the Third World as a solution to global climate change. EDF convinced McDonalds in 1991 to reform its solid-waste disposal practices and to move from Styrofoam to paper packaging (but remained mum on quality of food, ecologically destructive ranching practices and abusive treatment of animals and workers.) In cooperation with major timber companies, the group developed a 'paper-use task force,' whose recommendations discreetly ignored sustainable alternatives to paper such as industrial hemp and kenaf. Inc. magazine praised president Fred Krupp for his ability to 'speak capitalism.' "[1]
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech-mainmenu-30/environment/2383-climategate-e-mail-scandal-could-melt-copenhagen-plans
Excerpt:
As was reported here previously, the release of thousands of e-mails and documents from a climate research center threatens to expose some of the biggest scientific names in the global warming debate to serious charges of fraud, unethical attacks on colleagues, censorship of opposing viewpoints, and possible criminal destruction and withholding of evidence.
Michael Mann, James Hansen, Phil Jones, Michael Oppenheimer, Stephen Schneider, Kevin Trenberth — these are but a few of the "big guns" of global warming alarmism who are unfavorably exposed in the documents that were posted on the Internet by unknown hackers who penetrated the computer system of the Climate Research Unit (CRU
Michael Oppenheimer Talks About Global Warming at St. Francis College
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5tkm6UoeK4
Excerpt:
http://salon.glenrose.net/default.asp?view=plink&id=12483
Excerpt:
What Does Junk Bond Mean?
A bond rated 'BB' or lower because of its high default risk.
Also known as a "high-yield bond" or "speculative bond"
The company was known as TXU until its $45 billion leveraged buyout by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Texas Pacific Group and Goldman Sachs. That purchase was the largest leveraged buyout in history....
Hmmm. Goldman Sachs is part of EFH that owns Luminant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Future_Holdings
Excerpt:
Energy Future Holdings Corporation is an electric utility company headquartered in Energy Plaza in Downtown Dallas, Texas, United States. The company was known as TXU until its $45 billion leveraged buyout by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Texas Pacific Group and Goldman Sachs. That purchase was the largest leveraged buyout in history.
http://www.princeton.edu/step/people/faculty/michael-oppenheimer/
Excerpt:
Oppenheimer joined the Princeton faculty after more than two decades with The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), a non-governmental, environmental organization, where he served as chief scientist and manager of the Climate and Air Program. He continues to serve as a science advisor to EDF
http://www.blogcatalog.com/blogs/mullins-world
Excerpt:
Separating Global Warming Facts and Myths
"Even smart humans will hold weird opinions." ~Michael Oppenheimer, one of the world's foremost global warming experts and a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which won the Nobel Prize. I had a conversation with a friend who is a climate change denier. He loves Fox News and believes every lying word. There is no conversation with him. Not a stupid man, he just refuses to accept that it is happening and clings to the mantra that it is all about redistribution of wealth. Facts are facts and real science cannot be denied but some people will refuse the facts no matter what the evidence shows. Below is a foremost expert and he makes a case for science. From a lecture at St. Francis College in Brooklyn January 20th 2010 Separating Global Warming Facts and Myths Michael Oppenheimer, Member of Nobel-winning Panel, Offers Predictions & Solutions Oppenheimer is one of the world' read moreFebruary 2nd, 2011 at 09:10 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminant
Luminant is a Texas-based electric utility. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Energy Future Holdings Corporation. Luminant's operations include electricity generation and wholesaling, mining, construction, and development. The company has capacity for the generation of 18,300 megawatts (MW) of electricity in 20 power plants spread across Texas, of which 2,300 MW come from nuclear power generated at the company's Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant, 5,800 MW from coal fired power plants, and the remainder from natural gas-fired plants. Luminant is also a major purchaser of wind power.[1]
Luminant also owns and operates three of the five largest coal mines (by production) in Texas: the Beckville Strip, the Three Oaks Mine, and the Oak Hill Strip. The company extracted over fourteen million short tons of coal from those three mines in 2007.[2]
http://irregulartimes.com/index.php/archives/tag/luminant/
Excerpt:
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/disastrous-performance-private-equity-top-10-lbos-6-are-distress-4-have-defaulted
Excerpt:
For those who are interested in more information, Moody's has compiled a useful report, entitled "$640 billion & 640 days later: how companies sponsored by big private equity have performed during the U.S. recession." The track record is simply abysmal: Of the top 10 deals, only Hertz, HCA and First Data are considered "stable" which is actually saying a lot ("stable" by Moody's means these firms are likely about to have an alien burst out of their ribcage).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hospital_Corporation_of_America
Excerpt:
On March 19th, 1997, investigators from the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Health and Human Services served search warrants at Columbia/HCA facilities in El Paso and on dozens of doctors with suspected ties to the company.[4] Following the raids, the Columbia/HCA board of directors forced Rick Scott to resign as Chairman and CEO. [5] He was paid a settlement of $9.88 million, and left with 10 million shares of stock worth over $350 million, mostly from his initial investment.[6][7] In 1999, Columbia/HCA changed its name back to HCA, Inc.
In settlements reached in 2000 and 2002, Columbia/HCA pleaded guilty to 14 felonies. They admitted systematically overcharging the government by claiming marketing costs as reimbursable, by striking illegal deals with home care agencies, and by filing false data about use of hospital space.
HCA also admitted fraudulently billing Medicare and other health programs by inflating the seriousness of diagnoses and to giving doctors partnerships in company hospitals as a kickback for the doctors referring patients to HCA. They filed false cost reports, fraudulently billing Medicare for home health care workers, and paid kickbacks in the sale of home health agencies and to doctors to refer patients. In addition, they gave doctors "loans" never intending to be repaid, free rent, free office furniture, and free drugs from hospital pharmacies.[8] [9]
In late 2002, HCA agreed to pay the U.S. government $631 million, plus interest, and pay $17.5 million to state Medicaid agencies, in addition to $250 million paid up to that point to resolve outstanding Medicare expense claims.[10] In all, civil law suits cost HCA more than $2 billion to settle, by far the largest fraud settlement in US history.[11]
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bill_Frist:_Inside_Trader
Excerpt:
On June 13, 2005, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, "a potential presidential candidate in 2008, sold all his stock in his family's hospital corporation, about two weeks before it issued a disappointing earnings report and the price fell nearly fifteen percent," the Associated Press's Jonathan M. Katz reported September 21, 2005.
"Thomas Frist, the senator's father, and the senator's brother, Thomas Frist Jr., founded HCA Inc. in 1968 along with Jack Massey, the former owner of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Thomas Frist Jr., who stepped down as chairman of the company in 2002, still serves on the company's board of directors." [1]
http://www.healthbeatblog.com/2009/03/who-is-richard-scott-and-why-is-he-saying-these-things-about-healthcare-reform.html
Excerpt:
Who Is Richard Scott ?
I interviewed Rick Scott many years ago when he had just become CEO of Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corp., a for-profit hospital chain that was the offspring of a merger between Columbia Healthcare (a chain that Scott had forged with the help of Texas financier Richard Rainwater) and Hospital Corporation of America (the for-profit hospital giant created by father and son team Dr. Thomas Frist Sr.and Dr Thomas Frist Jr.,-- along with Jack Massey, the promoter who turned Harland Sander’s recipe for Kentucky fried chicken into a fast-food emporium.
Much of the story below is adapted from my book: Money-Driven Medicine: The Real Reason Healthcare Costs So Much. There, you will find copious footnotes documenting the facts.
When Scott got into the hospital business his medical experience was limited to helping health care companies buy and sell each other. A mergers and acquisitions lawyer from Dallas, Scott had worked on deals involving radio stations and fast-food businesses before zeroing in how just how much money could be made by acquiring hospitals.
Then along came Rainwater, asking Scott to join him in “doing for hospitals . . .what McDonald’s has done in the food business and what WalMart has done in the retailing business.” (Needless to say, Rainwater had never tried to run a hospital) I can still recall how Scott looked: a lean man with a receding hairline and a hungry look, he didn’t fit my image of a hospital executive. He had grown up in Kansas City, Missouri where his mother helped support five children by selling encyclopedias door-ro-door, doing other people’s laundry, cleaning telephone booths and clerking at J.C. Penney. Understandably, money was very important to Scott. He liked to pinch pennies. I remember he boasted to me about the old clunker of a car that he drove for years..
The frugality carried over the Columbia/HCA’s hospitals. “Gloves rip easily,” complained hospital workers in Florida. In California, some nurses protested “filthy conditions” and being “stretched to the limit as the hospital slashed the ratio of nurses to patients”
“I sometimes had to watch 72 patients heart monitors at a time,” one nurse reported. “I was told, either do it, or there’s the door.” In Indianapolis nurses complained to state authorities that babies in the neonatal unit were left unattended for as long as three hours.
http://blog.reidreport.com/2010/10/flashback-rick-scott-lobbied-george-w-bush-to-halt-expansion-of-tx-kids-health-coverage/
Excerpt:
The video above, unearthed back in September by Brian Crowley, is of Florida Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott joking with a fake George W. Bush (and recounting a dinner with the real former president and his family.) But back in the day, Rick Scott was CEO of Columbia/HCA, and he wanted then-Texas Gov. Bush to do something for him.
While searching for info for another post, I ran across an interesting clip from an old New York Times profile of Richard E. Rainwater, the man who engineered George W. Bush’s stake in the Texas Rangers, which he later sold for more than $10 million — forming the foundation of his wealth (since his prior oil businesses, funded by his father’s Saudi allies, had failed.) Bush shared that stake in the Major League Baseball team with one Richard Scott. And that’s where the fun begins. From the Times piece, first up — Mr. Bush and Mr. Rainwater:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Scott
Excerpt:
Richard Lynn "Rick" Scott (born December 1, 1952) is an American politician who is the 45th and current Governor of the U.S. state of Florida.
Scott served in the U.S. Navy and then went into business. He earned a business degree and law degree and joined a Dallas firm where he became partner. In 1987 he helped found the Columbia Hospital Corporation with two business partners; this merged with Hospital Corporation of America in 1989 to form Columbia/HCA and eventually became the largest private for-profit health care company in the U.S. He was forced to resign as Chief Executive of Columbia/HCA in 1997 amid a scandal over the company's business and Medicare billing practices; the company ultimately admitted to fourteen felonies and agreed to pay the federal government over $600 million.[3][4][5][6][7] Scott later became a venture capitalist, and entered into politics in 2010, when he announced his intention to run for Governor of Florida. Having defeated Bill McCollum in the Republican primary election, Scott defeated Democrat Alex Sink in a close race in the 2010 Florida gubernatorial election.[8]
http://www.flgov.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminant
Luminant is a Texas-based electric utility. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Energy Future Holdings Corporation. Luminant's operations include electricity generation and wholesaling, mining, construction, and development. The company has capacity for the generation of 18,300 megawatts (MW) of electricity in 20 power plants spread across Texas, of which 2,300 MW come from nuclear power generated at the company's Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant, 5,800 MW from coal fired power plants, and the remainder from natural gas-fired plants. Luminant is also a major purchaser of wind power.[1]
Luminant also owns and operates three of the five largest coal mines (by production) in Texas: the Beckville Strip, the Three Oaks Mine, and the Oak Hill Strip. The company extracted over fourteen million short tons of coal from those three mines in 2007.[2]
http://irregulartimes.com/index.php/archives/tag/luminant/
Excerpt:
Posts Tagged ‘luminant’
Kids Get Hurt by Chet Edwards and Luminant sweetheart deal
Thursday, March 18th, 2010The Environmental Integrity Project released a report yesterday detailing the nation’s biggest mercury polluters:
Texas is home to the largest mercury emitter– Luminant’s Martin Lake power plant, which reported a 4.56 percent increase from 2007 to 2008. In fact, the Lone Star State claims five of the 10 largest power plant mercury air pollution sites in the nation. Dallas-based Luminant (formerly TXU) has three of the nation’s top five largest mercury emitters, in terms of total pounds emitted, all operating in East Texas.We’re not talking about planetary emissions. The element mercury cripples the brains of little kids:
Each year, more than 300,000 newborn babies may have an increased risk of learning disabilities due to in utero exposure to mercury, which is a neurotoxin that causes impaired neurological development in fetuses, infants and children.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/disastrous-performance-private-equity-top-10-lbos-6-are-distress-4-have-defaulted
Excerpt:
For those who are interested in more information, Moody's has compiled a useful report, entitled "$640 billion & 640 days later: how companies sponsored by big private equity have performed during the U.S. recession." The track record is simply abysmal: Of the top 10 deals, only Hertz, HCA and First Data are considered "stable" which is actually saying a lot ("stable" by Moody's means these firms are likely about to have an alien burst out of their ribcage).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hospital_Corporation_of_America
Excerpt:
On March 19th, 1997, investigators from the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Health and Human Services served search warrants at Columbia/HCA facilities in El Paso and on dozens of doctors with suspected ties to the company.[4] Following the raids, the Columbia/HCA board of directors forced Rick Scott to resign as Chairman and CEO. [5] He was paid a settlement of $9.88 million, and left with 10 million shares of stock worth over $350 million, mostly from his initial investment.[6][7] In 1999, Columbia/HCA changed its name back to HCA, Inc.
In settlements reached in 2000 and 2002, Columbia/HCA pleaded guilty to 14 felonies. They admitted systematically overcharging the government by claiming marketing costs as reimbursable, by striking illegal deals with home care agencies, and by filing false data about use of hospital space.
HCA also admitted fraudulently billing Medicare and other health programs by inflating the seriousness of diagnoses and to giving doctors partnerships in company hospitals as a kickback for the doctors referring patients to HCA. They filed false cost reports, fraudulently billing Medicare for home health care workers, and paid kickbacks in the sale of home health agencies and to doctors to refer patients. In addition, they gave doctors "loans" never intending to be repaid, free rent, free office furniture, and free drugs from hospital pharmacies.[8] [9]
In late 2002, HCA agreed to pay the U.S. government $631 million, plus interest, and pay $17.5 million to state Medicaid agencies, in addition to $250 million paid up to that point to resolve outstanding Medicare expense claims.[10] In all, civil law suits cost HCA more than $2 billion to settle, by far the largest fraud settlement in US history.[11]
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bill_Frist:_Inside_Trader
Excerpt:
On June 13, 2005, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, "a potential presidential candidate in 2008, sold all his stock in his family's hospital corporation, about two weeks before it issued a disappointing earnings report and the price fell nearly fifteen percent," the Associated Press's Jonathan M. Katz reported September 21, 2005.
"Thomas Frist, the senator's father, and the senator's brother, Thomas Frist Jr., founded HCA Inc. in 1968 along with Jack Massey, the former owner of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Thomas Frist Jr., who stepped down as chairman of the company in 2002, still serves on the company's board of directors." [1]
http://www.healthbeatblog.com/2009/03/who-is-richard-scott-and-why-is-he-saying-these-things-about-healthcare-reform.html
Excerpt:
Who Is Richard Scott ?
I interviewed Rick Scott many years ago when he had just become CEO of Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corp., a for-profit hospital chain that was the offspring of a merger between Columbia Healthcare (a chain that Scott had forged with the help of Texas financier Richard Rainwater) and Hospital Corporation of America (the for-profit hospital giant created by father and son team Dr. Thomas Frist Sr.and Dr Thomas Frist Jr.,-- along with Jack Massey, the promoter who turned Harland Sander’s recipe for Kentucky fried chicken into a fast-food emporium.
Much of the story below is adapted from my book: Money-Driven Medicine: The Real Reason Healthcare Costs So Much. There, you will find copious footnotes documenting the facts.
When Scott got into the hospital business his medical experience was limited to helping health care companies buy and sell each other. A mergers and acquisitions lawyer from Dallas, Scott had worked on deals involving radio stations and fast-food businesses before zeroing in how just how much money could be made by acquiring hospitals.
Then along came Rainwater, asking Scott to join him in “doing for hospitals . . .what McDonald’s has done in the food business and what WalMart has done in the retailing business.” (Needless to say, Rainwater had never tried to run a hospital) I can still recall how Scott looked: a lean man with a receding hairline and a hungry look, he didn’t fit my image of a hospital executive. He had grown up in Kansas City, Missouri where his mother helped support five children by selling encyclopedias door-ro-door, doing other people’s laundry, cleaning telephone booths and clerking at J.C. Penney. Understandably, money was very important to Scott. He liked to pinch pennies. I remember he boasted to me about the old clunker of a car that he drove for years..
The frugality carried over the Columbia/HCA’s hospitals. “Gloves rip easily,” complained hospital workers in Florida. In California, some nurses protested “filthy conditions” and being “stretched to the limit as the hospital slashed the ratio of nurses to patients”
“I sometimes had to watch 72 patients heart monitors at a time,” one nurse reported. “I was told, either do it, or there’s the door.” In Indianapolis nurses complained to state authorities that babies in the neonatal unit were left unattended for as long as three hours.
http://blog.reidreport.com/2010/10/flashback-rick-scott-lobbied-george-w-bush-to-halt-expansion-of-tx-kids-health-coverage/
Excerpt:
Flashback: Rick Scott lobbied George W. Bush to halt expansion of TX kids’ health coverage
October 24, 2010 · Posted in Florida, George W. Bush, Healthcare, News and Current Affairs, People, Political News, Rick Scott
The video above, unearthed back in September by Brian Crowley, is of Florida Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott joking with a fake George W. Bush (and recounting a dinner with the real former president and his family.) But back in the day, Rick Scott was CEO of Columbia/HCA, and he wanted then-Texas Gov. Bush to do something for him.
While searching for info for another post, I ran across an interesting clip from an old New York Times profile of Richard E. Rainwater, the man who engineered George W. Bush’s stake in the Texas Rangers, which he later sold for more than $10 million — forming the foundation of his wealth (since his prior oil businesses, funded by his father’s Saudi allies, had failed.) Bush shared that stake in the Major League Baseball team with one Richard Scott. And that’s where the fun begins. From the Times piece, first up — Mr. Bush and Mr. Rainwater:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Scott
Excerpt:
| Rick Scott | |
 | |
45th Governor of Florida | |
|---|---|
| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office January 4, 2011 | |
| Lieutenant | Jennifer Carroll |
| Preceded by | Charlie Crist |
| Born | December 1, 1952 Bloomington, Illinois |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse(s) | Ann Scott |
| Children | Jordan Allison |
| Residence | Florida Governor's Mansion |
| Alma mater | University of Missouri, Kansas City Southern Methodist University |
| Profession | Business executive |
| Religion | Methodist |
| Website | Official website |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance | United States |
| Service/branch | United States Navy |
| Years of service | 1971–1974[1] |
| Rank | Petty Officer Third Class[2] |
| Unit | USS Glover |
Richard Lynn "Rick" Scott (born December 1, 1952) is an American politician who is the 45th and current Governor of the U.S. state of Florida.
Scott served in the U.S. Navy and then went into business. He earned a business degree and law degree and joined a Dallas firm where he became partner. In 1987 he helped found the Columbia Hospital Corporation with two business partners; this merged with Hospital Corporation of America in 1989 to form Columbia/HCA and eventually became the largest private for-profit health care company in the U.S. He was forced to resign as Chief Executive of Columbia/HCA in 1997 amid a scandal over the company's business and Medicare billing practices; the company ultimately admitted to fourteen felonies and agreed to pay the federal government over $600 million.[3][4][5][6][7] Scott later became a venture capitalist, and entered into politics in 2010, when he announced his intention to run for Governor of Florida. Having defeated Bill McCollum in the Republican primary election, Scott defeated Democrat Alex Sink in a close race in the 2010 Florida gubernatorial election.[8]
http://www.flgov.com/
