Monday, March 9, 2009

Frances Townsend Favors PEU's


Ex-White House Homeland Security Adviser Frances Townsend will be the Keynote speaker at "The Future is Now", the 2009 SunGard Availability Services Software International User Group. Her talk is titled, "Crisis is Opportunity: How to Change from Within."

Will Frances share how she jumped on a plane to Saudi Arabia, rather than help with the White House Hurricane Katrina response? Will she share how that crisis became an opportunity for The Carlyle Group and Tenet Health? Neither corporate owner, responsible for Memorial Medical Center's 34 patient deaths, made Townsend's Katrina investigative report. Jeb Bush landed a spot on the Tenet board about a year after Fran's whitewash.

The Carlyle Group purchased LifeCare Hospitals weeks before Katrina sideswiped New Orleans. LifeCare lost 24 patients in the storm's aftermath. Ironically, SunGard changed hands about the same time. SEC filings state:


Sungard was acquired on August 11, 2005 by a consortium of private equity investment funds associated with Bain Capital Partners, The Blackstone Group, Goldman Sachs Capital Partners, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., Providence Equity Partners, Silver Lake Partners and Texas Pacific Group.

Frances Townsend and private equity underwrters (PEU's) make quit the pair.