Billionaire Greg Whitten, Great-West Assurance and the Rainmaker Movie

What do Billionaire Greg Whitten, Geat-West Financial and the movie The Rainmaker have in common?

We read a story from one of our sister news blogs, the U.S. Watchdogs, with great interest . The story is entitled: Greg Whitten, Great-West Assurance: The Rainmaker Revisited?. This story is of particular interest to us as two of the three parties in that story are from New England, both the alleged “victim” and Great-West Financial’s CEO, Robert L. Reynolds. Prior to being CEO of Great-West, Robert Reynolds was CEO of the Boston Company, Putnam Investments. According to the Boston Globe, Reynolds “is sitting atop a newly merged group of companies that is the second-largest 401(k) retirement plan administrator in the country”.

What really got to us about this story, was not that it was about Billionaires and Billion Dollar Companies vs. the little guy, it was the why? Why deny a measly $6800 payout? Was there something more at stake? While not wanting to date ourselves, these appear to be the same tactics used by Bill Gates when he was the CEO of Microsoft. Billionaire Greg Whitten is referred to in the U.S. Watchdogs story, to

Be sure to see parts II and III to this story

• Billionaire Greg Whitten Paid: So Why The “Lies”?
• Billionaire Greg Whitten: Never Having To Say He’s Sorry?

Missing from the picture hung on Billionaire Greg Whittens door at Proximation was, well, Greg Witten

be the self proclaimed 11th employee of Microsoft and a disciple of Bill Gates. Whitten apparently had a picture on his office door at Proximation of the first 11 employees of Microsoft where Gates looks like a teenager. We looked at the picture but we couldn’t find Whitten. We certainly found what appeared to us to be the same tactics employed by Gates being used by Whitten et al. These tactics were referred to as “predatory” practices by the U.S. Government and the European Union in their lawsuits against Microsoft, and appear to have been used against our Retiree from New England.

See Part II: Is Greg Whitten the “Bully Billionaire”?

This story also brings to mind the movie The Rainmaker staring Matt Damon and Danny DeVito. In the movie the insurance company would not pay claims for a cancer victim who eventually died. They felt it was cheaper to pay lawsuits than valid claims and adopted a policy where they denied every claim they received, and relied on the fact that their clients would either give up or die. While the U.S. Watchdogs’ story is about a 401K and profit sharing plans and Great-West Financial is a retirement plan administrator, if they were (or currently are) to adopt similar policies when it comes to retirement and profit sharing plans, it could affect millions of us.

While we believe one is innocent until proven guilty, it was very hard for us to read the U.S Watchdogs’ story and review the documents without feeling that this could be a scene right out of The Rainmaker.

We highly recommend you read the U.S. Watchdogs’ story if you or your loved ones have a retirement plan or are nearing retirement age. See what could happen to your money.

A snippet from the U.S. Watchdogs’ Exclusive Story. It will make you wonder.

Billionaire Greg Whitten

Why would a Billionaire and a Billion Dollar Company deny a former employee who has Heart Failure and is currently on Social Security, a $6800 profit-sharing payment due him 14 years ago? (Think it was the interest?) Was it about what that movie, The Rain Maker, brought up, where the policy of the insurance company was to deny each and every request for payment until the claimant either died or gave up? Or was it about office whispers that someone became a Billionaire on the back of someone else’s abilities? Or was it simply that some people can never have enough? You decide.

Billionaire Gregory Whitten, who reports himself to be the 11th employee of Microsoft, is also well known for his multi-million dollar heated multi-acre garage which houses his collection of classic cars, one of which is reported to be worth

Billionaire Greg Whittens Multi-Acer, Multi Million Dollar Garage

$52 million. Whitten is also the founder of Proximation LLC, which appears he merged, for all practical purposes, into Numerix LLC, where he made a well publicized $32 million investment. What will Whitten’s legacy be? Will it be about Microsoft, about getting out from the shadow of Gates with Numerix? Or will it be about the story unfolding right here and right now.

Snippet: some history on Great-West Financial:

Robert Reynolds CTO of Great-West Financial

Who exactly is the company working for Whtten Et Al that is now handling the profit-sharing due the Retiree? The website, retirementpartner.com, redirects to FASCore, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Great-West Financial. Robert L. Reynolds, formally of Putnam Investments, became president and chief executive officer of Great-West Financial in May 2014 and Great-West is the same company estimated to be spending millions to promote its new “Empower” retirement plan you may have heard of. The Boston Globe reported, Putnam and Great-West combine retirement services under a new brand: Empower. Great-West Financial also acquired the J.P. Morgan Retirement Plan Services creating, as they state on their website, “one of the largest retirement recordkeeping firms in the U.S. marketplace”. We hope this isn’t how they intend to treat all of their clients’ claims. We can’t seem to shake that Rainmaker Thing.

Read the full story: Greg Whitten, Great-West Assurance: The Rainmaker Revisited at the U.S. Watchdogs Network.

Related Stories:

• Billionaire Greg Whitten: Never Having To Say He’s Sorry?
• 1Is Greg Whitten the “Bully Billionaire”?
• Billionaire Greg Whitten Paid: So Why The “Lies”?
• Greg Whitten, Great-West Assurance: The Rainmaker Revisited?
• Obama Muscles: Great-West, Greg Whitten & The Rainmaker
• N.E. Wtchdogs: Billionaire Greg Whitten, Great-West Assurance and the Rainmaker Movie
• Optima Tax Relief: GREAT-WEST EMPOWER – IS YOUR RETIREMENT SAFE?