The Corporate Empire

    The Sunday Times "Rich List", of the year Michael Green left for university, placed Hazel Green 26th. These were merely the assets she would admit to in their interviews. Forbes, after a detailed investigation, estimated her corporate holdings to have a net worth of roughly US$18 billion. Within a month of the article being published, their financial editor was killed in a tragic rail accident.

In the wake of Enron, demands by the US government for "transparent accounting practice" produced a grudging admission by the accountancy firm of Burrough & Anderson that the real figure was nearly twice that. Icy glares from the FBI made them "suddenly find" a further $80 million, but the volley of vengeful lobbying subsequently unleashed by the Greens at the White House crippled any attempts to follow up.

Speculation suspects the real figure to be between three and five times the US government's estimates. At least. From third-world pharmaceuticals to Alaskan oil, the Greens have their dirty fingers in a staggering number of tills - and yet, they remain aloof from such "mundane" matters in the public eye, the common Board myth of a vast conglomerate remaining just that.

The telling presence of their henchmen in so many boardrooms tells the real tale, however - with layers of financial and legal cutouts saving them from any embarrassment if their skulduggery were to be revealed, the family prefer to control their assets via strings of offshore trusts, front companies, and distant tax havens. If Embarrassment does strike, then the "independent" audit firms brought in to clean up are invariably firmly within the draconic fist. When challenged over this, their response is invariably that such activity is merely good business practice.