Jon Rappoport The images of these companies couldn’t be connected in your wildest dreams.
One, a natural foods outfit. The other a shadowy elite with big front men like George HW Bush and James Baker and John Major.
One company started in a garden and a home kitchen. The other started behind the curtain of global economics.
With Annie’s you get organic bunny fruit snacks. With Carlyle you get a business relationship with the bin Laden family. You get a major defense contractor, because Carlyle invested in defense corporations at a time when Bush Sr. was its PR star, and his son, in the White House, was jacking up the Pentagon budget.
The catch is, Annie’s and Carlyle are both publicly traded companies.
The second top shareholder, at the moment, in Annie’s is FMR, LLC, an investment fund. FMR holds 1,281,588 shares of Annie’s.
FMR is also the second top shareholder in Carlyle. It holds 4,081,247 shares.
The fourth top shareholder in Carlyle is Times Square Capital Management, LLC. It holds 2,195,000 shares.
Times Square Capital is the number-one shareholder in Annie’s:1,661,070 shares.
(Source on stats: Yahoo Finance)
What does this mean? What are the implications?
As I explained, when I published an article showing identical major shareholders in Monsanto and Whole Foods, it means big investment money travels far and wide.
It means investment funds cover the waterfront of companies.
http://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2014/02/25/top-shareholders-in-whole-foods-and-monsanto-identical/
http://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2014/02/26/what-the-whole-foods-monsanto-connection-really-means/
These funds don’t climb down from their perch and suddenly start giving orders to the CEOs of Annie’s and Carlyle. They just buy and sell stock. They look to make profit.
Investment funds use algorithms and computer models and, based on the results, they buy stocks.
But…if they want to, if they perceive “something is wrong and needs correcting,” they can cast proxy votes and affect companies’ policies and actions. They can exert compelling influence.
These giant investment funds float like clouds over the financial landscape. They move, they drift. But they can coalesce and make it rain. If they want to. They have that ability.
They have that power. They manage and control enormous sums of money, which they invest.
Here are eye-popping figures. According to the 2013 Investment Company Fact Book, published by the Investment Company Institute, the “total worldwide assets invested in mutual funds” is:
$26.8 trillion.
“US investment company [investment funds] total net assets”: $14.7 trillion.
“US investment companies share of US corporate equity”: 28%.
US investment companies share of US municipal securities? 28%. Share of commercial paper? 42%. Share of US government securities? 12%.
Investment funds get their money from individuals, families, communities, governments, corporations, foundations, and they invest it.
In a crisis, in a “situation” where these funds deem a publicly traded company has “gone too far,” has “wandered off the reservation,” has, for example, developed a product which would “unsettle the economy”—like a new cheaper energy source—these funds could choose to descend from their thrones and crack the whip.
If tomorrow, the CEO of Annie’s woke up and decided that labeling GMOs was not enough, and what America really and urgently needed was a ban on all GMO crops, its investment fund shareholders could take out the whip and beat down Annie’s stock price.
If tomorrow, the bosses at Carlyle found a way to secure a greater stake in Russian natural resources, or further a US war against yet another foreign nation, its investment fund shareholders could smile and gobble up more Carlyle stock, driving up the price, and forwarding those imperial goals and objectives.
This is called a controlled economy. When it counts.
Jon Rappoport
The author of two explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED and EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free emails at www.nomorefakenews.com