September 5, 2002 | Read Time: 2 minutes
The Whitney Museum of American Art thought it had “landed the richest prize in town” when Tyco International’s chief executive, Dennis Kozlowski, joined its board in 2001, New York magazine reports (August 19). But one year and one corporate-accounting scandal later, museum officials are wondering when Tyco will be able to make good on its $4.5-million pledge.
Mr. Kozlowski’s name surfaced in early 2001 when the board’s nominating committee was looking for corporate titans who could help beef up the Whitney’s $45.5-million endowment.
“Kozlowski was well known on Wall Street for commanding a salary package so outrageous that it stood out even in such exuberant times,” the magazine says. “Within one four-day period in early September 2000, he had cashed in $268-million worth of Tyco stock.”
But by early this year, the choice began to look like a mistake, as Tyco’s stock was plunging, questions were being raised about its accounting, and Mr. Kozlowski was making headlines with his attempts to avoid paying taxes on a $13-million “art-buying binge,” the magazine says.
According to the magazine, art insiders say that, although Mr. Kozlowski liked to acquire expensive art, he was not necessarily very knowledgeable about it nor “an active student of the arts,” in the words of the Whitney’s director, Maxwell Anderson.
“We need to ask ourselves: What is the motivation for these people to join the board, particularly if they are not interested in art?” the magazine quotes one unnamed trustee as saying. “I’m not sure we need this tainted money.”
In the same issue, New York also raises questions about the charity work and finances of Paul McCartney’s new wife, Heather Mills, a former model known for her efforts to help individuals who have lost limbs.
Ms. Mills, whose leg was amputated after an accident in 1993, started the Heather Mills Health Trust in 1994 to buy artificial limbs for Bosnian land-mine victims and others.
The magazine reports that Ms. Mills did not register her charity with the British government until 2000, and did so only in response to a journalist’s inquiry. New York also points out that the charity’s public financial records did not reflect the full amount of a £150,000 gift made by Mr. McCartney, and notes other “puzzling inconsistencies” in its financial records. Ms. Mills told the magazine she had thrown out written records for her charity covering the years 1994 to 1999, seeing no need to retain them because, she said, “I’m totally honest and I’m trustworthy.”
“Is the charity work reported to have attracted Sir Paul as her suitor,” the magazine asks, “really, in part, a canny marketing device, a way to sell Mills as sort of Mother-Teresa-meets-the-Spice-Girls?”
The articles are available online at http://www.newyorkmetro.com/nymag/toc/20020819.
