The SEC received word of Bush s trade eight month s late. Bush has said he filed the notice but that is was lost. Despite Harken s small size and poor performance in recent years, it continues to provide Bush and its other directors and executives with unusually generous pay and perquisites. Harken has been characterized by a pattern of financial deal making so burdened with debt and tangled stock swaps that its largest creditors threatened to shut the company down and oil-industry analysts have all but given up on tracking it. I want to be an analyst, not a speculator.
Harken executives say the company s practices are proper.
Harken Energy today is a very different company from the gutsy start-up outfits that President Bush and his father once ran. In 1983, Harken was purchased by a group of investors led by Alan Quasha, an aggressive young lawyer from New York. Quasha and his colleagues transformed Harken overnight, playing the oil game like high-stakes poker. They spent money, they made money - and most recently, they have lost money. The company s annual reports now speak little of oil and gas production but volumes about share offerings and renegotiated debt.