Corporations

PR trade publication O'Dwyer's PR Daily reports: "Robert Monks, Chairman of LENS Investment Management and Ram Trust Services, has filed a resolution calling for the separation of the Chairman and CEO positions at ExxonMobil because he believes the current holder of the posts, Lee Raymond, and his denial of the global warming problem is destroying the reputation of the energy giant. Monks says Raymond's 'extreme position' and negative public image is the reason that ExxonMobil's stock is 'undervalued compared to its peer group when it should be at a premium.'"

"If there was no Afghanistan story," writes Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz, "the press would be going nuts over Enron. It's the biggest corporate collapse ever, the firm employed some top administration officials and the CEO was a Dubya pal. Enron has been a big business story, but hasn't drawn the kind of daily-drumbeat political treatment that often surrounds corporate chicanery with a strong whiff of scandal."

Energy trading corporation Enron has hired "two of the nation's most respected strategic communications firms--Kekst & Company and The Brunswick Group" according to the Holmes Report. The firms have been working with Enron to assist with crisis communications as the company begins bankruptcy proceedings. Holmes reports Kekst has handled numerous projects requiring crisis management for Enron over the years, starting with a crisis involving the company's Puerto Rican water operations. This time Kekst was called in when Enron's financial troubles became public.

How will the President of the United States make millions, if not billions, from the war on terrorism? He'll probably inherit it, according to this collection of reports on the Carlyle Group, a secretive $12 billion private equity firm based in Washington that has parlayed a roster of former top-level government officials, largely from the Bush and Reagan administrations, into a moneymaking machine. Its members include prominent world leaders such as George Bush, Sr.