Riddle of George Bush shares sale

GEORGE Bush faces more scrutiny of his personal financial dealings. It was reported that he did have insider information about falling profits at a Texas oil company weeks before he sold £600,000 worth of its stock.

Interest in the business deals of Mr Bush and his vice-president Dick Cheney has grown following the accounting scandals that have rocked the US business world in recent months.

A new poll from Newsweek shows that nearly half of US voters think Mr Bush took advantage of the system for personal gain in 1990 when he sold shares in the Harken Energy Corporation of which he was a director.

Documents just released under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that four months before he sold almost all of his holdings, he received a confidential letter from management.

It warned that profits were disappointing and the company would 'continue to be severely limited in our activitiesdue to cash constraints'. The Securities and Exchange Commission had, without giving details, previously cleared Mr Bush of wrongdoing over his sale of Harken stock.

What is now known for the first time is that whether or not he was influenced by insider information, he certainly had that information.

Other documents released yesterday show Mr Bush was linked to Harken's decision to sell a subsidiary then use the sale in such a way as to mask huge losses. This is similar to methods used by Enron.

Since the Enron and WorldCom scandals, Mr Bush has doubled the jail term to a maximum of ten years for directors convicted of insider dealing.

Richard Grasso, chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, warned last night that Wall Street could face another rough ride when stock markets open today but urged investors to take a long-term view.