The arrival of Andrew Fredman is particularly interesting. He is a Managing Director of Fir Tree Partners L.P.—which the $PLC coyly does not name—a hedge fund based in New York.
Perhaps this casts some light on the $PLC’s amazing “Money Mountain”—as I called it last year. This continues to grow. Total assets for the year ended October 31st 2010 rose 13.25% to $250.77 million—Net Assets (e.g. after deducting all payables) rose 14.39% to $228.7 Million.
The $PLC has never been wealthier.
What the $PLC portentously calls its “Endowment Fund” also reached a record, up $27.3 Million to $216.2 million.
This terminology, of course, is blatantly deceptive. As I noted last year, with most charities
…the term "Endowment Fund" would mean a pool of funds to which access is restricted, perhaps to income or a small percentage of assets.
But this is not the case with the $PLC. Only a tiny proportion of its assets are restricted. The nomenclature is just camouflage. It just means the $PLC has no intention of spending the money. As Dan Borochoff, President of the watchdog American Institute of Philanthropies told Bill O’Reilly in 2001: ‘It’s not really an endowment [just] because the board called it that.’ [The O’Reilly Factor, interview with Daniel Borochoff, February 23, 2001.](See NPI/SPLC Report II, Pp17-18)
