A federal jury in Hartford has found four former General Re Corporation (Gen Re) executives, including a former Westport Board of Finance member, along with one former American International Group Inc. (AIG) executive, guilty of fraud following a five-week long trial, the Justice Department announced today.
Robert Graham: Found guilty. WN file photo

The jury returned a verdict of guilty on all charges against all defendants contained in a 16-count superseding indictment stemming from a fraudulent scheme to manipulate AIG’s financial statements, the department said.

Robert Graham, 59, of Westport, a Gen Re senior vice president and assistant general counsel employed by Gen Re from about 1986 through October 2005, was found guilty on charges of conspiracy, securities fraud, false statements to the SEC, and mail fraud, a news release said.

Graham served as a Republican member of the Westport Planning and Zoning Commission from 1995 to 1999 and was on the Board of Finance from 1999 to 2003.

The Westport / Weston Chamber of Commerce announced today that effective March 3 it will be moving to new offices at 215 Main St. across from Westport Town Hall and Veterans Green.
The chamber building at 60 Church Lane was recently sold.  (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com

“Our offices on Church Lane were great and we will miss having the luxury of so much space. However, we felt we had an obligation to our membership to be fiscally responsible,” said Paul Gehr, chamber vice chairman. “We have found a location that meets our space and financial needs.”

The Town Clerk’s property transfers issued last week showed that the chamber sold its building at 60 Church Lane to Braidmax LLC for $1,275,000.

“One comment we often received from visitors was that our offices on Church Lane had poor parking,” said Richard Gordon, board chair.

Today’s New York Times highlights the troubles at a Stamford-based hedge fund whose Westport co-founder reportedly has begun shutting down the business after credit market loses.

“Mark S. Fishman was a modern prince of the markets — a pedigreed money manager who raised billions of dollars at the height of the hedge fund boom,” the newspaper said. But it said last week his dream collapsed.

“Hobbled by bad trades in the credit markets, Mr. Fishman began to shut the fund he helped found, Sailfish Capital Partners, which oversaw $2 billion just six months ago, investors said,” the Times reported.

The newspaper said on Monday Fishman, 47, sat in the paneled Princeton Club of New York, explaining what it was like to battle the markets — and lose.

The 90 Main St. property currently occupied by Talbots Mens will become a Vineyard Vines by Mitchells sometime this spring. The store will be another joint venture by the Mitchell family of Westport and brothers Ian and Shep Murray of Greenwich, who founded their company in 1998. The two families opened a Vineyard Vines by Richards in Greenwich in 2006 and more recently one in Key Largo, Fla. They also plan a store this year in Washington, D.C.‘s Georgetown section. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Dave Matlow/WestportNow.com file photo

Westport-based Terex Corp. said today its planned $480.6 million acquisition of construction equipment maker ASV Inc. received antitrust approval.

The company said the waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Act had expired, clearing the way for the tender offer to go through. In January, Terex offered to buy all of ASV’s outstanding stock for $18 per share. (See WestportNow Jan. 14, 2008)

ASV makes compact track loaders used in construction and is based in Grand Rapids, Minn.

Terex said the tender offer is scheduled to expire at the end of Feb. 25 unless extended.

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal today released a report finding that the state badly botched an $80 million deal privatizing payment of some state worker’s compensation claims, likely overpaying a Westport-based contractor and failing to save the state money.

The Department of Administrative Services (DAS) doomed the 2001 deal by hiring a contractor lacking the expertise to properly evaluate claims slated for privatization, Blumenthal found.

The contractor, MRM Consulting, Inc., of 1720 Post Road East, Westport, whose CEO is Westporter Adrien Theriault, hired college interns to do key parts of the highly specialized analysis, charging the state $105 an hour, Blumenthal said.

“Friends of Mr. Theriault’s college-aged son from the son’s high school years in Westport with no experience whatsoever in the insurance industry performed critical tasks in developing the reserves and setting the liability on the cases,” the report said.

The Wall Street Journal today named Westporter Tina Gaudoin to be editor of the Journal’s new high-end lifestyle magazine, which is scheduled to launch Sept. 6.
Tina Gaudoin: will head lifestyle magazine. File photo

Gaudoin will work closely with the Journal’s news department and will oversee all editorial content that will appear in the publication, an announcement said. Additionally, she will develop a core team of magazine journalists and report to Mike Miller, deputy managing editor of The Wall Street Journal.

“I am thrilled to be joining such an august publication with such a phenomenal heritage,” said Gaudoin. “I look forward to bringing the world of The Journal reader to life, with the help of intelligent reporting, arresting visuals and a sense of humor.”

Since June 2007, Gaudoin was the editor of the quarterly magazine, The Times Luxx. She joined The Times of London in 2003 as the style director of its Saturday magazine.

Whole Foods Market, which includes a Westport branch on Post Road West (formerly Wild Oats), has banned plastic bags. The Austin, Texas, natural-foods chain said Tuesday that it will eliminate all single-use plastic bags from stores nationwide by Earth Day, April 22. Stores nationwide gave away 55,000 reusable plastic bags on Tuesday, officials said. The reusable bags are now on sale for 99 cents, and, as the sign outside the Westport store indicates, customers will get 10 cents back for every reusable bag used. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com