Who is Behind India's Deven Sharma?

One who studies such reports cannot help noticing that Deven Sharma, who grew up in India (a former British colony) received much of his formative training from Bush-connected institutions and corporations.

Standard & Poor's President Stepping Down

Published August 22, 2011

Associated Press

NEW YORK –  The president of Standard & Poor's is stepping down, an announcement coming only weeks after the rating agency's unprecedented move to strip the United States of its AAA-credit rating. The McGraw-Hill Cos., the parent of S&P, said late Monday that Deven Sharma will be replaced by Douglas Peterson, now the chief operating officer of Citibank N.A., Citigroup Inc.'s chief banking arm. Sharma, 55, "was ready for new challenges" after helping S&P separate its data, pricing and analytics business from its ratings business, McGraw-Hill said in a statement. 

The company unveiled that restructuring at S&P late last year. Peterson, 53, will take over the helm of S&P starting Sept. 12. Sharma will stay on as an adviser at the parent company until the end of the year. McGraw-Hill's statement did not mention of the Aug. 5 downgrade that sent shock waves through global financial markets and was sharply criticized by the Obama administration, which said the agency's analysis was fundamentally flawed. 

Other major rating agencies have maintained their AAA ratings on the U.S. It also did not refer to recent reports that the Justice Department was investigating whether S&P improperly rated dozens of mortgage securities in the years leading up to the financial crisis in 2008. Those reports sent McGraw-Hill's shares tumbling last week.

The company said only that Sharma was eager to pursue other opportunities. 

"S&P will continue to produce ratings that are comparable, forward looking and transparent," McGraw-Hill CEO Harold McGraw III said in announcing the leadership change at the agency.

Sharma joined S&P in 2006 and was named president the following year. Before that, he was executive vice president, global strategy, at McGraw-Hill for five years. Peterson was the CEO of Citigroup Japan before taking on his current role at that company.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Indian executive at core of S&P's US ratings downgrade

Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/article/profit/indian-executive-at-core-of-s-p-s-us-ratings-downgrade-166991&cp

Sharma is part of an expanding league of Indian-origin persons heading global financial institutions. Incidentally, another India-born executive Vikram Pandit was at the helm of efforts to steer global banking giant Citigroup out of the financial crisis of 2008.  Recently, another Indian-origin banker, Anshu Jain, was  appointed co-CEO of German banking major Deutsche Bank....

Before joining Booz Allen [a management consultant firm founded in Chicago with a strong history of military multi-national corporate clients, where he became a partner], Sharma worked with manufacturing companies Dresser Industries and Anderson  Strathclyde. Sharma is also a member of the Federal Deposit Insurance  Corporation's Systemic Resolution Advisory Committee and the  Council on Foreign Relations. He also serves on the International Advisory Board of the British-American Business  Council and the Asia Society Business Council.

Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/article/profit/indian-executive-at-core-of-s-p-s-us-ratings-downgrade-166991&cp

Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/article/profit/indian-executive-at-core-of-s-p-s-us-ratings-downgrade-166991&cp

An article written by researcher Linda Minor has for years floated around the internet. It purports to trace the ownership of Dresser Industries--where Sharma was first employed after receiving his doctorate in Columbus, Ohio, the hometown of Prescott Bush and his father Samuel Bush--back to the purchase of the Dresser family's patent of a pipeline coupling joint by the W. Averell Harriman investment bank, shortly before he and his brother (the redoubtable "Bunny") merged their banks with the old opium investments of the British-connected Brown Brothers Bank. The full article can be read here.

At her own website (www.MinorMusings.com), Linda Minor has explored other facets of the Dresser company.

• George Bush’s Political Secrets
  In 1972 the 48-year-old George Bush had already experienced a varied career in both business and public life. A Navy pilot in World War II, he completed his studies at Yale in 1950 (Skull and Bones) and moved to Texas to engage in the oil business. Financed largely by clients of his father and uncle with connections to the investment banks of Brown Brothers Harriman or  G.H. Walker & Co. or to Dresser Industries (now part of Halliburton), which was then wholly owned by Brown Brothers Harriman, of which his father was a senior partner.

• More research needs to be done to determine what mineral rights were owned in these lands by the various interests. It is very possible that the rights were split among the Coolidge faction from Boston, the G.H. Walker group including Bush and the Rockefeller group. The pipeline company would thus have been closely involved with Dresser Industries, which controlled the patent on the coupling joint used in all petroleum pipelines. Dresser's stock was purchased in 1911 by W.A. Harriman & Company, Inc., supposedly with the intention of reselling, but apart from subsequent stock flotations, the investment bank (Brown Brothers, Harriman) continued to control  what became Dresser Industries, Inc. in 1944. The initial stock issue in 1928 was underwritten by Roland (Bunny) Harriman and Prescott Bush while G.H. Walker was president of the W.A. Harriman firm. Prescott Bush served on the board of directors continuously until he went to the U.S. Senate in 1953. It is very interesting that Magnolia moved its headquarters to Dallas at about the same time that Dresser moved there.

• HOW GEORGE H. W. BUSH'S CAREER DEVELOPED BY HIS USE OF SOURCES OF CAPITAL
  When George H.W. Bush arrived in Texas after graduation from Yale, his career began with an interview with Neil Mallon, president of Dresser Industries in Dallas. Dresser, which owned the patent for the coupling joint used in laying petroleum pipelines, was a corporation wholly owned by the investment bank Brown Brothers, Harriman.  Prescott Bush was a director of Dresser for decades, as well as being a partner in Brown Brothers Harriman--which had resulted from the merger of the bank set up by Prescott's father-in-law, George Herbert Walker, at the request of the sons of Union Pacific Railroad tycoon E.H. Harriman. Walker had previously had his own investment bank in St. Louis .... Neil Mallon had been hired as Dresser's first president after it was purchased from the Dresser heirs by Brown Brothers Harriman.... [Read more here.]

Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/article/profit/indian-executive-at-core-of-s-p-s-us-ratings-downgrade-166991&cp Before joining Booz Allen, Sharma worked with manufacturing companies Dresser Industries and Anderson  Strathclyde. Sharma is also a member of the Federal Deposit Insurance  Corporation's Systemic Resolution Advisory Committee and the  Council on Foreign Relations.
He also serves on the International Advisory Board of the British-American Business  Council and the Asia Society Business Council.

Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/article/profit/indian-executive-at-core-of-s-p-s-us-ratings-downgrade-166991&cp

Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/article/profit/indian-executive-at-core-of-s-p-s-us-ratings-downgrade-166991&cp