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Craig Stapleton worked in the White House of the first President Bush (who appointed him to the Peace Corps board) and married the second President Bush’s cousin, Dorothy. From 1982 until President George W. Bush nominated him as U.S. Ambassador to the Czech Republic in 2001, Stapleton was president of Marsh & McLennan Real Estate Advisors, the leasing unit of Marsh & McLennan Companies. Stapleton also invested with Bush in the Texas Rangers ball team that made Bush a millionaire 15 times over. Bush’s profits got a boost from the other partners, who gifted him extra equity in the deal, and by local taxpayers, who paid $135 million for the team’s new stadium. When the hospitality division of the Blackstone Group investment bank (see Stephen Schwarzman) merged with CUC International in 1997, CUC designated Stapleton as one of its directors on the board of the new Cendant Corp. The following year, Cendant slashed its reported earnings over the past three years by $650 million due to massive accounting fraud at CUC. With Stapleton, ex-Defense Secretary William Cohen and ex-Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney on its board, Cendant then settled investor lawsuits for a record $3.1 billion. That same year, Stapleton organized a 1998 Bush fundraiser that netted $250,000. As the No. 1 stockholder in Vacu-dry Co., Stapleton joined other board members in June 1999 in a sudden decision to abandon its apple-drying business. The decision wiped out 276 plant jobs and blindsided Sonoma County apple growers. “It wasn’t quitting that was so bad,” said grower Bill Braga. “But to do it so late in the season. They caught us at the time that we were about to harvest.” “We understand this is a dislocation for a lot of people, and we feel badly about that,” a reassuring Stapleton pledged to local media. “We’re going to try to take care of them and create a business that is more viable.” Instead, Vacu-dry reorganized as SonomaWest Holdings and, after briefly dabbling in organic foods, dedicated itself to leasing out its landholdings in the area. SonomaWest’s 2003 annual report said it had five employees. Stapleton’s longtime employer owns Marsh Mercer Consulting Group and Putnam Investments. After Massachusetts regulators issued subpoenas in 2003 to probe allegations that Putnam gave special privileges to elite mutual fund investors, the company fired 15 employees for personally profiting from rapid-fire, “market-timing” trades in Putnam mutual funds and then fired Putnam CEO Lawrence Lasser. In 2004, research firm Morningstar, Inc. ranked a college savings plan that Putnam administers in Ohio as one of the five worst in the nation due to the excessive fees that it reaps from these educational accounts. Marsh & McLennan had almost $2.5 million in federal contracts in fiscal 2002, mostly with the Treasury Department.
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| Profile last updated
Apr 1, 2004
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