The Bilderberg Group, an annual gathering of government leaders and policy making billionaires, ends today. Up to 3,000 officers were on standby to protect a mere 150 attendees.
The Guardian has recently provided the most comprehensive coverage of the event. Take attendee Eric Schmidt, Google's Executive Chairman. While he sat in Copenhagen with the global elite, Google announced its Motorola Mobility plant in Fort Worth would close. The plant opened in May 2013, with great fanfare. Texas Governor and former Bildeberger Rick Perry attended. The plant employed as many as 3800 people, but was down to 700 when the company delivered the closing announcement.
The plant-closing announcement comes four months after Google said it plans to sell the Motorola handset business to Chinese computer maker Lenovo Group Ltd. for $2.9 billion.
Google bought Motorola Mobility in 2011. Buying and selling companies is a private equity underwriter (PEU) like move.
The annual Bilderberg meeting is popular with the PEU class. On the publicly released participant list were Henry Kravis and David Petraeus of KKR, Bob Rubin of Centerbridge Partners, Robert Zoellick of Goldman Sachs, Peter Thiel of Thiel Capital, Peter Mandelson of Global Counsel LLC, Mustafa Koç of Koç Holding (joint investor with Carlyle Group on Turkish hospital chain), James A. Johnson of Johnson Capital Partners and Roger Altman of Evercore.
Global tamperers Henry Kissinger, Richard Perle, James Wolfensohn and Tom Donilon attended, as did spy company extraordinaire Palantir Technologies CEO Alex Karp. Bilderberg usually has other unannounced guests, but as this isn't a U.S. Presidential election year, there are no rumors of potential future candidates dropping by. It's hard to believe Donald Graham (formerly of WaPo fame) didn't merit an invite.
