The Fremont Group�s Web site, which makes no mention of the bin Ladens, notes that �though now independent, Fremont enjoys a close relationship with Bechtel.� A spokeswoman for the company confirmed that Fremont�s �majority ownership is the Bechtel family.� And a list of the corporate board of directors shows substantial overlap. Five of Fremont�s eight directors are also directors of Bechtel. One Fremont director, Riley Bechtel, is the chairman and chief executive officer of the Bechtel Group, and is a member of the Bush Administration: he was appointed this year to serve on the President�s Export Council. In addition, George Shultz, the Secretary of State in the Reagan Administration, serves as a director both of Fremont and of the Bechtel Group, where he once was president and still is listed as senior counsellor.
Rick Kopf, the general counsel of the Fremont Group, which manages some eleven billion dollars in assets, confirms that the bin Laden family invested about ten million dollars in one of Fremont�s private funds before September 11, 2001. He noted that the bin Laden family has not enlarged its stake since then, but he declined to provide additional details about its association with the firm. He also chose not to discuss the origin or the nature of the relationship between the bin Laden and Bechtel families, both of which made fortunes in huge construction projects in the Arab world. The Fremont Group evidently does not go in for connecting the dots. As Kopf said, �Ownership is private and is not disclosed.�
Jane Meyer in the inimitable New Yorker Issue of 2003-05-05 Posted 2003-04-28
