If he hadn’t pocketed such hefty fees from him, Bill Clinton might be justified in feeling badly treated by retail billionaire Solomon Lew.
The Premier Investments chairman, Lew has been out spruiking the US president-elect Donald Trump, with whom he worked a decade ago on the auction of hundreds of luxury apartments in Hawaii, the state where Barack Obama was born (as Trump finally conceded a few months ago).
Well-connected retail billionaire Solomon Lew, at a lunch with guests including then treasurer Joe Hockey and BHP boss Andrew Mackenzie.
In Lew’s account, the 2006 deal with his fellow billionaire was a great success.
“He has bred a great culture within both his family and his organisation,” Lew said.
It’s the sort of happy Trump story few people were trotting out before November 8.
Lew, for example, has always been much more public about his admiration for the Clintons, particularly Bill.
Back in 2001, Lew was one of 60 business types who shelled out $18,000 for an audience with the US’s 42nd president.
“It was like history in the making, absolutely inspiring,” Lew said after the Melbourne summit.
The billionaire was so impressed that the next year Clinton addressed a fundraising dinner for Mount Scopus, the prestigious Jewish college whose foundation Lew chaired for 26 years until 2013.
That Clinton address at the “Gala Dinner” still sits proudly in the highlights reel of the annual report of the foundation, which is now chaired by Tony Smorgon.
No doubt we would have heard a lot more about that event and Solly’s other presidential mate had things gone differently last Tuesday.
Read the article by Will Glasgow in The Australian.