The buyer of Bush’s 212,140 Harken shares in June 1990 remains unknown, although The Boston Globe has reported that Ralph D. Smith, the broker in the sale of Bush’s shares, says the buyer was an “institutional client.” A Globe story this month determined that the buyer was likely the New York investment firm Quest Advisory.

Meyer vehemently denies that Harvard was the buyer of Bush’s shares, and says that he does not know who the buyer was.

Although Harvard did increase its holdings in Harken during 1990, Meyer says all of that stock came from the company directly as part of loan deals and other transactions.

And Meyer says speculation that HMC would want to offer a political favor to Bush is “absurd.”

“There is no rationale [at all],” he says.

Partnership

As Harvard became more heavily invested in Harken, it took on an even larger role as an investor when it helped to create Harvard Anadarko Partnership (HAP) in December 1990—a move which helped Harken to remain solvent and which HarvardWatch has compared to the off-the-book shadow companies and partnerships used at Enron.

Meyer, for his part, describes the partnership as the “antithesis” of Enron’s partnerships.

Meyer says HMC formed HAP because it only wanted to focus on Harken’s oil and gas properties, and not its other businesses—including convenience stores for gas stations and gas pipelines.

“This was set up with a legitimate business purpose,” Meyer says.

At the same time, unlike the fake companies set up by Enron executives, the formation of the partnership made HMC liable for the debt associated with Harken properties, Meyer says.

Meyer adds that unlike Enron, “all material aspects of the partnerships and economic arrangements between the partnership and Harken” were included in SEC filings.

HarvardWatch claims in its October report that “following the transfer of Harken’s debts into HAP, Harken experienced the largest increase in its stock price for the six-year period between 1988 and 1994.”

However, that stock price bump did not come until almost 18 months after the partnership was created and, in the year following HAP’s creation, Harken’s stock price in fact declined.

Meyer posits that Harken’s stock price rose following a surge in the natural gas price, which rose nearly 60 percent in the same time as the stock spike.