Word: adm
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...tend to be the boss's choice to inherit the top job. Mark Whitacre, 38, was just such a favorite at giant Archer Daniels Midland, the company that calls itself "supermarket to the world" because its products range from flour to vegetable oil. So close was Whitacre to ADM chairman Dwayne Andreas that the older man regarded the younger as a "second son." And as if to emulate his mentor, Whitacre lived in a colonial-style mansion in Moweaqua, Illinois, that Andreas once owned...
...fast-growing division that extracts profitable nutrients like vitamins from grain. But he also served as an FBI mole in an investigation of possible price-fixing at the firm. According to a story broken last week by the Wall Street Journal, Whitacre alerted federal authorities to possible collusion between ADM and other companies in 1992, and was outfitted with a briefcase with a hidden recorder. Since then, the Journal said, the FBI has collected audio- and videotapes of hundreds of meetings between ADM and other firms in hotels in cities from Los Angeles to Tokyo...
Just as corporate executives across America were digesting the idea that a major U.S. company could be infiltrated at the highest level by the FBI another tantalizing aspect to the case emerged. Howard Buffett, ADM vice president for public affairs and son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett, had quit a week earlier, apparently distressed about the investigation and the company's handling...
...high-fructose corn syrup, a sweetener found in everything from Coca-Cola to cake; lysine, an amino acid used in feeding poultry and hogs; and citric acid, which adds tartness to jams and jellies, among many other uses. Some experts speculated that investigators are focusing on the possibility that ADM set predatory--meaning artificially low--prices on lysine, which Whitacre's BioProducts Division produces. That might help explain how ADM grabbed a 50% share of the worldwide market for lysine...
...probe put an uncomfortable spotlight on Andreas, 77, who for the past three decades has cultivated Presidents and putative Presidents by heaping money on them. According to Common Cause, Andreas, his wife and ADM have given a total of $1.4 million in so-called soft, or unrestricted, funds to the Republican Party since 1991, as well as $759,000 to the Democrats. In return for his largese, Andreas has often seemed to reap what he has sown. For example, ADM profits handsomely from federal programs that raise U.S. sugar prices above the world level, at an estimated cost to consumers...