Richard C. Breeden

Richard C. Breeden was born in 1949. During his professional career he has been a law school instructor, a practicing lawyer at Cravath, Baker Botts and Willkie, an economics advisor to Vice President George H.W. Bush (and later President George H.W. Bush), Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, a senior partner of an accounting firm, CEO of a public company and head of his own turnaround and workouts firm.

In July 2002, Breeden was appointed to act as Corporate Monitor of WorldCom, Inc. by the Honorable Jed S. Rakoff of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, who oversaw the case involving history's largest corporate fraud and the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history. In this capacity he has been responsible for overseeing efforts to insure that fraudulent activities, self dealing and financial abuse at WorldCom have been halted, and for recommending new systems of corporate governance and compensation.

In June 2003, while still serving at WorldCom, the board of directors of Hollinger International, Inc. asked Mr. Breeden to lead an investigation into insider abuses at the company.

Commentator Mark Steyn called Breeden "the world's first corporate governance billionaire," excoriating Breeden for the rewards he extracted from Hollinger while presiding over a crash in Hollinger stock.

In 2006, Breeden founded activist hedge fund Breeden Partners, through which he has been active going after Applebees and H&R Block. In the case of Applebees, Breeden was engaged in the Board's special committee that ultimately recommended a sale of the company to IHOP. The small premium paid by IHOP created controversy over the modest value realized for shareholders.

External links

• A Maclean's article on Richard Breeden's work with Hollinger International by Mark Steyn