Part 62 of 62 in the series Terry McAuliffe, gubernatorial candidate and carmogul
NEW FRIENDS: Virginia’s Democrat gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe, center, is lending his fundraising expertise and considerable connections to a fund that also boasts as advisers retired U.S. Army Gen. Wesley Clark, right, and Richard A. Clarke, a Reagan, Bush and Clinton counter-terrorism czar.
By Tori Richards and Earl Glynn | Watchdog.org
When Mitt Romney ran for president in 2012, he was vilified for his role in Bain Capital, a Boston private equity firm that has made billions in global investments since 1984.
“Romney’s companies were pioneers at shipping U.S. jobs overseas — investing in firms that specialized in relocating jobs done by American workers to new facilities in low wage countries like China,” one Obama TV ad proclaimed last summer.
But what the Democratic Party isn’t advertising is that its former chairman and current Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe is seeking wealthy investors for a mysterious private equity fund focusing on job growth in the Middle East that could include Syria.
McAuliffe, like Barack Obama before him, has made American jobs the forefront of his campaign, even though he is lending his fundraising expertise and considerable connections to a fund that also boasts as advisers retired U.S. Army Gen. Wesley Clark and Richard A. Clarke, a Reagan, Bush and Clinton counter-terrorism czar.
The trio has been working with a $100-million Abu Dhabi/U.S. capital investment fund launched last year to “tap growing capital investor interest in new emerging markets growth opportunities,” according to a May 14, 2012, press release. “The joint investment team has identified a strong deal pipeline in the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey, a region that is expected to see GDP growth of 4.7 percent this year and 3.8 percent in 2013.”
The unnamed venture is the work of U.S.-based Paladin Capital Group and Invest AD, a leading Abu Dhabi investment company.
“Companies in the Middle East-North Africa (MENA) region are looking for stable and respected partners to help them achieve their ambitions, not just with capital, but with expertise and international business networks,” Invest AD’s CEO Nazem Fawwaz Al Kudsi, said in the release.
A TROUBLED REGION: A map of the Middle East. (Click to enlarge)
Clarke, Paladin and Invest AD failed to respond to numerous calls and emails seeking comment.
It’s unknown if McAuliffe has invested any of his own money in the fund. However, he too has bashed Romney for overseas connections when news surfaced last year that the former Massachusetts governor had offshore bank accounts.
“Why do you have an offshore bank account?” McAuliffe asked of Romney during an interview with the Daily Caller shortly before the presidential election.
And the Democratic Party of Virginia accused Romney of “a tax loophole that allows investment managers to pay a lower rate than they normally would, and other advantages like overseas tax havens that aren’t available to most Americans.”
Watchdog has revealed that McAuliffe’s electric car company, GreenTech Automotive, has a parent corporation based in the tax shelter of the British Virgin Islands. GreenTech is embroiled in what one Virginia government official called a “visa-for-sale scheme” in order to fund its fledgling plant in Mississippi. It is under investigation by the SEC for its fundraising efforts.
McAuliffe isn’t a stranger to the Middle East.
“I went over last year in the Middle East with another one of my child’s projects we’re working on over there …. We ought to be doing more to create — clearly in the Middle East there’s a tremendous amount of sun — building solar panel farms, or wind turbines and things like that,” McAuliffe said last year during a US Global Leadership Coalition symposium.
“We’ve got to create economic activity for people to help themselves, because if they don’t have it they’re stuck in poverty and bad results happen from that,” McAuliffe added.
With this new business venture, McAuliffe will seek to bring jobs to the medium-sized and small business sector of the Middle East. It’s not clear which countries are targeted, but the fund was mentioned, though still unnamed, in last year’s annual report by the MENA Private Equity Association. The report urged investors to consider working with the countries involved in the Arab Spring: Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Libya and Syria.
“The Arab Spring has the potential to usher in improved governance, greater transparency and a more stable investment environment which … have traditionally offered limited opportunities to private equity players,” the report said.
One thing is certain. Whatever the 2012 report suggests, Americans can’t invest in Syria.
“It’s illegal for Americans to do business with Syria,” said David Grayson, CEO of Auerbach Grayson, a global New York-based stock brokerage firm. “There are sanctions against Syria. Americans can visit, but they can’t invest money there.”
Contact Tori Richards at tori@watchdog.org or on twitter @newswriter2.
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