Romney’s Big Navy Guru Made Millions From Building Ships
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/10/big-business-romneys-navy/?fb_action_ids=10151226679703421&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=288381481237582
Romneys Big Navy Guru Made Millions From Building Ships
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has vowed to boost the size of the Navy by roughly 15 percent as part of a broader defense buildup. Our Navy is smaller now than at any time since 1917, he complained in Monday nights debate. Thats unacceptable to me.
But for one of Romneys most important advisers on Navy issues, a man who oversaw a massive naval expansion for Pres. Ronald Reagan, theres more at stake than U.S. national security. John Lehman, an investment banker and former secretary of the Navy, has strong and complex personal financial ties to the naval shipbuilding industry. He has profited hugely from the Navys slow growth in recent years raising the prospect that he could make even more if Romney takes his advice on expanding the fleet.
That doesnt mean that a bigger or better Navy is necessarily a bad idea. But it does complicate Romneys claim that a larger Navy would merely be matched to the interests we need to protect. A bigger maritime force has the possibility of personally enriching one of the candidates top advisers. In fact, it already has.
Lehman is the founder and chairman of J.F. Lehman & Company, a private equity firm. He also sits on several corporate boards.
Lehman invested in a government-backed Superferry in Hawaii a business that ultimately failed, but not before boosting the standing of Austal USA, an Alabama shipbuilder that constructed the ferry services ships. Austal USAs rising fortunes in turn benefited international defense giant BAE Systems, which then bought up shipyards owned by Lehman in order to work more closely with Austal USA.
..more..