Word: fruitful
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...underwear mogul, you surely cannot lack confidence. So it is with Bill Farley. The handsome physical-fitness buff has under his belt brands like BVD, Munsingwear and his flagship, Fruit of the Loom. He rubs shoulders with the rich and powerful, and recently co-chaired a lunch that raised more than $500,000 for George W. Bush. Muscles rippling, Farley, 57, has also shown up wearing a tank top in Fruit of the Loom advertising. He once even put himself forward as a candidate for President of the United States...
These days, however, Farley's political focus is squarely on Congress, where Fruit's adventures in lobbying offer a choice example of how the game is played. Fruit of the Loom is a tattered company, suffering from bad performance and poor management and lobbying heavily for a bill that would ripen its bottom line...
...likely is it that the company's case will be heard on the Hill? Well, last year alone Fruit handed out more than $435,000 in soft-money donations, a figure that puts contributions by the firm (1998 sales: $2.2 billion) ahead of those of such giants as Coca-Cola, Exxon and Bank of America. Most of Fruit's plums go to Republicans, including $265,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, run by Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, the principal opponent of campaign finance reform...
...Fruit's lobbyists--along with those from competitors like the Sara Lee Corp., which makes Hanes underwear, and retailers like the Limited and the Gap--are pushing hard for passage. Fruit officials claim the measure, which Bill Clinton supports, will create jobs, and deny that the company's donations can buy influence. Says Ron Sorini, a Fruit lobbyist: "There's absolutely no correlation between our soft-money donations and those who decide to vote in favor of this bill...
...Fruit confirms that the bill is expected to deliver a quick $25 million to $50 million to the bottom line, adding to savings achieved after moving some 17,000 of its U.S.-based jobs, mostly to the low-wage Caribbean Basin, and reincorporating in the tax haven Cayman Islands. The job cuts were spread across the South, especially Kentucky, where earlier in this decade Fruit was one of the largest employers. "They are trying to win in Washington what they've been unable to achieve in the marketplace," says Charles Lewis, executive director of the Center for Public Integrity...