Some Senate Leader called Bill? Selling stock just before it dives. And his holdings are to be in a blind trust? Is this true? I hope so he's such a smug ass anyway.
Another Martha Stwert?
- Thread starter djv
- Start date
As far as I know that money was in a blind trust which manages his portfolio with out his knowledge. I'm not an expert on the topic but how would he even know the exact value?? I would think he would only know the "general" value of his combined account holdings.
DJV - Do you know something we don't know or are propagandizing again? Is this just another DESPERATE attempt to make the republicans look bad?? lol like you really care about Bill Frist's stockholdings anyways.
(I saw how well this post went over djv, I felt sorry for you so I decided to humor you by responding.
)
DJV - Do you know something we don't know or are propagandizing again? Is this just another DESPERATE attempt to make the republicans look bad?? lol like you really care about Bill Frist's stockholdings anyways.
(I saw how well this post went over djv, I felt sorry for you so I decided to humor you by responding.
)
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CHARLESMANSON said:
MANSON TWISTS THE TRUTH AGAIN! What a lying sack of crap! :mj07: :mj07: :mj07:
Frist Stock Sale Raises Questions on Timing
By R. Jeffrey Smith and Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, September 22, 2005; Page A10
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) has maintained for years that his stock holdings in the nation's largest for-profit hospital chain posed no conflict of interest for a policymaker deeply involved in health care matters. He even received two rulings in the 1990s from the Senate ethics committee that blessed the holding of the stock in blind trusts.
So when Frist decided in June to dump all the stock, and later cited as the reason his desire to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, eyebrows went up among ethics experts and congressional watchdogs. Why did he do it at that time?
Precisely a month later, after the stock was sold, its price tumbled 9 percent when executives in the company -- HCA Inc., which was founded by Frist's father and on whose board Frist's brother serves -- disclosed that hospital admissions of insured patients were lower than expected, depressing profits in the second quarter.
The timing thus raised questions about whether Frist had somehow traded on information he obtained in advance from the company. "Frist has been in the Senate for many years now, and the conflict is not new," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of the watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "Why did he decide to sell it then? Why not years ago? What's changed? Did he know that the stock was about to take a fall?"
Frist spokeswoman Amy Call said yesterday that Frist "did not have any conversations with HCA executives about HCA stock when he was making the decision to divest." Asked more generally whether he had discussed the company's performance with its executives, she replied, "No."
She said Frist's decision was based "purely on wanting to avoid any future appearances of conflict" while pursuing new health initiatives, and said he had no way of knowing -- under the rules of the blind trusts -- how quickly the stock would be sold. Call promised to provide recent examples of criticism directed at Frist's stock holdings, but all those she eventually cited occurred before May 2004.
Until the sale, Frist's holdings in HCA formed a significant source of his wealth. His political career was launched in part by a loan secured by the stock; in 1994, he valued his holdings at $13 million, and the following year he placed them in a blind trust. In 2000, he transferred the HCA stock into a new blind trust, a transaction that could have given him insight into its value.
Frist's signed financial disclosure statements indicate that the overall value of his blind trusts did not substantially change from 2003 to 2004. As one of the Senate's multimillionaires, Frist has other non-HCA-stock holdings outside of the trusts.
Several ethics experts and watchdogs said they found it odd that Frist could intervene to order such a sale when the HCA stock was ostensibly out of his reach in blind trusts. Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, said, "The notion that you have a blind trust but you can tell your trustee when to sell stock in it just doesn't make any sense. It means you have a seeing eye trust and not a blind trust. It's ridiculous."
Larry Noble, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, agreed that the arrangement "seems to defeat the purpose of a blind trust. Somebody else is supposed to have control over it to avoid potential conflicts of interest. If you can just reach in and sell stock, it seems it defeats the whole purpose."
A sample agreement for blind trusts published by the Senate ethics committee staff on its Web site states that there should be no "direct or indirect communication" between senators and trustees unless the senator is directing the trustee "to sell all of an asset . . . [which] creates a conflict of interest or the appearance thereof due to the subsequent assumption of duties" by the senator.
Jan W. Baran, a Republican ethics expert at Wiley Rein & Fielding LLP, said, "That's the question, 'What changed?' " to compel Frist to sell his stock when he did.
According to Senate ethics rules, Baran said, Frist "can tell somebody to dispose of all of an asset that was initially placed into the blind trust. As a matter of Senate ethics rules, he is in compliance. The question that remains is, why did he sell the stock at that time? What conflicts arose in June that did not exist beforehand?"
"For the Securities and Exchange Commission," Baran added, "the answer is probably very important."
According to Thomson Financial, a reporting service, seven senior HCA executives sold 574,882 shares worth $19,942,610 between May 17 and June 10. A company spokesman, Jeff Prescott, said the executives are entitled "like other stockholders [to] make personal decisions . . . about when to sell." He said the executives complied with "blackout restrictions" imposed by the SEC to prevent dealing within a certain period prior to restatements of earnings.
An SEC spokesman said it is the commission's policy not to comment on investigations, and would neither confirm nor deny that it is probing insider trading at HCA.
Researcher Richard Drezen, in New York, contributed to this report.
CHARLESMANSON said:
MANSON TWISTS THE TRUTH AGAIN! What a sack of crap! :mj07: :mj07: :mj07:
Frist Stock Sale Raises Questions on Timing
By R. Jeffrey Smith and Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, September 22, 2005; Page A10
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) has maintained for years that his stock holdings in the nation's largest for-profit hospital chain posed no conflict of interest for a policymaker deeply involved in health care matters. He even received two rulings in the 1990s from the Senate ethics committee that blessed the holding of the stock in blind trusts.
So when Frist decided in June to dump all the stock, and later cited as the reason his desire to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest, eyebrows went up among ethics experts and congressional watchdogs. Why did he do it at that time?
Precisely a month later, after the stock was sold, its price tumbled 9 percent when executives in the company -- HCA Inc., which was founded by Frist's father and on whose board Frist's brother serves -- disclosed that hospital admissions of insured patients were lower than expected, depressing profits in the second quarter.
The timing thus raised questions about whether Frist had somehow traded on information he obtained in advance from the company. "Frist has been in the Senate for many years now, and the conflict is not new," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of the watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "Why did he decide to sell it then? Why not years ago? What's changed? Did he know that the stock was about to take a fall?"
Frist spokeswoman Amy Call said yesterday that Frist "did not have any conversations with HCA executives about HCA stock when he was making the decision to divest." Asked more generally whether he had discussed the company's performance with its executives, she replied, "No."
She said Frist's decision was based "purely on wanting to avoid any future appearances of conflict" while pursuing new health initiatives, and said he had no way of knowing -- under the rules of the blind trusts -- how quickly the stock would be sold. Call promised to provide recent examples of criticism directed at Frist's stock holdings, but all those she eventually cited occurred before May 2004.
Until the sale, Frist's holdings in HCA formed a significant source of his wealth. His political career was launched in part by a loan secured by the stock; in 1994, he valued his holdings at $13 million, and the following year he placed them in a blind trust. In 2000, he transferred the HCA stock into a new blind trust, a transaction that could have given him insight into its value.
Frist's signed financial disclosure statements indicate that the overall value of his blind trusts did not substantially change from 2003 to 2004. As one of the Senate's multimillionaires, Frist has other non-HCA-stock holdings outside of the trusts.
Several ethics experts and watchdogs said they found it odd that Frist could intervene to order such a sale when the HCA stock was ostensibly out of his reach in blind trusts. Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, said, "The notion that you have a blind trust but you can tell your trustee when to sell stock in it just doesn't make any sense. It means you have a seeing eye trust and not a blind trust. It's ridiculous."
Larry Noble, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, agreed that the arrangement "seems to defeat the purpose of a blind trust. Somebody else is supposed to have control over it to avoid potential conflicts of interest. If you can just reach in and sell stock, it seems it defeats the whole purpose."
A sample agreement for blind trusts published by the Senate ethics committee staff on its Web site states that there should be no "direct or indirect communication" between senators and trustees unless the senator is directing the trustee "to sell all of an asset . . . [which] creates a conflict of interest or the appearance thereof due to the subsequent assumption of duties" by the senator.
Jan W. Baran, a Republican ethics expert at Wiley Rein & Fielding LLP, said, "That's the question, 'What changed?' " to compel Frist to sell his stock when he did.
According to Senate ethics rules, Baran said, Frist "can tell somebody to dispose of all of an asset that was initially placed into the blind trust. As a matter of Senate ethics rules, he is in compliance. The question that remains is, why did he sell the stock at that time? What conflicts arose in June that did not exist beforehand?"
"For the Securities and Exchange Commission," Baran added, "the answer is probably very important."
According to Thomson Financial, a reporting service, seven senior HCA executives sold 574,882 shares worth $19,942,610 between May 17 and June 10. A company spokesman, Jeff Prescott, said the executives are entitled "like other stockholders [to] make personal decisions . . . about when to sell." He said the executives complied with "blackout restrictions" imposed by the SEC to prevent dealing within a certain period prior to restatements of earnings.
An SEC spokesman said it is the commission's policy not to comment on investigations, and would neither confirm nor deny that it is probing insider trading at HCA.
Researcher Richard Drezen, in New York, contributed to this report.
You don't need to flip out and start name calling and getting all hyper about it.
Twisted what truth?? Here is where I got my info.......if CBS is lying again then don't shoot the messenger.
CBS News correspondent Gloria Borger reports that Frist's stocks are handled by a blind trust that manages his portfolio without his full knowledge. Frist can request that his stocks in a corporation be sold in their entirety, but never know the actual value ? he would only know the general value of all his account holdings.
Nice try buddy.
Twisted what truth?? Here is where I got my info.......if CBS is lying again then don't shoot the messenger.
CBS News correspondent Gloria Borger reports that Frist's stocks are handled by a blind trust that manages his portfolio without his full knowledge. Frist can request that his stocks in a corporation be sold in their entirety, but never know the actual value ? he would only know the general value of all his account holdings.
Nice try buddy.
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CHARLESMANSON said:
You don't even read your own posts do you?
Right there, in red, it says he can request that his stocks in a corporation can be sold in their entirety.
What is it that you don't understand? He got word they were going down and he sold. CBS didn't lie. But either you did or you are a total moron with very bad reading skills. Which is surprising for such a good speller like yourself. :mj07:
Does the constant name calling help your arguments or is that a tactic to prop up your low self-esteem?
First of all in my original post I told you guys that I am no expert on the topic. I told you what little I did know and I am sorry if that made me "a sack of crap". Like CBS said, Frist's stocks are handled by a blind trust that manages his portfolio without his full knowledge. I guess you don't want to put that in red though huh?
You say he got word that the stocks were going down???
Enlighten me.
Again, I am no expert on this topic, but obviously you are so maybe you can help us all out. Frist did nothing wrong and offered full cooperation so if you are accussing him of doing something illegal.....please show me proof. Who knows Stevie, it may even be more effective then namecalling.
First of all in my original post I told you guys that I am no expert on the topic. I told you what little I did know and I am sorry if that made me "a sack of crap". Like CBS said, Frist's stocks are handled by a blind trust that manages his portfolio without his full knowledge. I guess you don't want to put that in red though huh?
You say he got word that the stocks were going down???
Enlighten me.
Again, I am no expert on this topic, but obviously you are so maybe you can help us all out. Frist did nothing wrong and offered full cooperation so if you are accussing him of doing something illegal.....please show me proof. Who knows Stevie, it may even be more effective then namecalling.
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So review after review has shown no wrong doing. Senator Frist was not an active stock trader. This is quite different from Martha Stewart's situation. I guess you also failed to mention that Frist initiated the stock sale months in advance of the company issuing a profit warning that drove down its stock price. All of the information that Frist had was public information anyways.
Again.....instead of attacking me and calling me names...it would be more effective for you to show us proof that Frist had prior knowledge of the stock price declining.
Frist's stocks are managed in a portfolio with out his knowledge. He would only know the general value of his account. You can ignore that fact and call me names all you want.
Again.....instead of attacking me and calling me names...it would be more effective for you to show us proof that Frist had prior knowledge of the stock price declining.
Frist's stocks are managed in a portfolio with out his knowledge. He would only know the general value of his account. You can ignore that fact and call me names all you want.
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So he sell's it now because it could be conflict of interest with up coming business in the Senate. And sold his wife's and children's to. So for 7 to 8 years no conflict every came up. Even with the Med Care bill? And when asked a year ago, he was not sure if he even owned any of this stock. Your Kidding. And no one would pass any info to him with his brother sitting on the board of this company. No, no one.
MANSON,stop your constant crying will you. It is so unbecoming of such a good speller such as yourself. Frist probably did not know the value of his stocks but your own post says that he could sell off all the stocks of a corporation. Now follow this if you can, He sold his stock a month before the company issued a bad earnings report. His brother is on the board of diirectors of the company. Even someone who likes to twist things like you would have to admit that it seems a little fishy, or is that fishey? I'm not sure.
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I thought stock drop was more like 15% instead of 9%--in either case I agree that SEC investigation would be normal and prudent--however more of formailty than smelling a rat I believe.
As far as other HCA top dogs selling stock--this is public info on insider trading and is available to general public--so that is mute.
If there is anything at all that I see that I question was I saw in one report I deemed credible that he said he did not know all of stocks in trust--if he did in fact say that--I would find that hard to believe.
As far as other HCA top dogs selling stock--this is public info on insider trading and is available to general public--so that is mute.
If there is anything at all that I see that I question was I saw in one report I deemed credible that he said he did not know all of stocks in trust--if he did in fact say that--I would find that hard to believe.
