FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Friday Thorn, friday_thorn@prwatch.org

(Madison, WI) – The Center for Media and Democracy's (CMD) series of profiles on "America's Highest Paid Government Workers" today puts the spotlight on Nicholas Moore, Managing Director and CEO of the Australian firm Macquarie [3].

Macquarie Group Limited is a publicly traded banking, financial, advisory, investment, and fund management services headquartered in Sydney, Australia. In the United States, it has pushed for the privatization of public infrastructure and assets [4] and operates major toll roads including Chicago's Skyway, Indiana's Toll Road, and the Dulles Greenway in Virginia, where area residents complain that higher tolls are pushing traffic into residential areas. The firm also owns a stake in Acquarion, a private, for-profit water service provider in New England, and is a major investor [5] in K12 Inc., a for-profit provider of poorly performing "cyberschools." [6] K12 Inc. receives 86% of its revenue from taxpayers. [7]

U.S. taxpayers and toll payers contribute to making Moore "America's Highest Paid Road Worker." Moore made $8.8 million [8] in compensation in fiscal year 2013, according to Bloomberg BusinessWeek . Macquarie's top executives are also well compensated making an estimated $53 million [9] in combined compensation in fiscal year 2013. In the fiscal year ending March 31, 2013, Macquarie reported $6.7 billion [10] in revenue (this amount converted from Australian to U.S. dollars).

"Why are we sending taxpayer revenue to executives and shareholders abroad when we need to be investing in America, rebuilding our roads, bridges and other infrastructure?" said Lisa Graves, Executive Director for the Center for Media and Democracy.

For a number of years, Macquarie funded and led ALEC's efforts to promote privatization of U.S. services. For instance, when Macquarie's Geoff Segal was the private sector chair of ALEC's Transportation and Infrastructure subcommittee in 2011, he introduced the "Establishing a Public Private Partnership (P3) Authority Act" [11] as a "model" bill to promote the privatization of public assets. The bill calls for an unelected committee to serve as a one-stop-shop for the privatization of any public service.

CMD will continue to profile some of the other CEOs who are living large off the taxpayer dime this month. The effort is part of our ongoing project, OutsourcingAmericaExposed.org [12], which focuses on the 12 firms doing the most to privatize public services.

Learn more about Macquarie at our SourceWatch profile [13]. Follow the conversation at #OutsourcingAmerica.