PatRobertson.com

Attention Kerry Hubert-Martin
Fortune Magazine
1271 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020-1300

LETTER TO THE EDITOR:

I write to express my amazement at the factual inaccuracies and unalloyed bigotry shown in the article written about my activities (or "empire" in the words of your young reporter, Dan Roth).

Your headline proclaimed that I had "lost $78 million" which had been invested in "a gold mine in Liberia," and "a mothballed oil refinery." This assertion was without documentation and is factually untrue.

It is public knowledge that the amount indicated was invested in the CENCO Refinery, and that a California environmental group requested a court order to mandate, in addition to our full agreement with the EPA solemnified by a Judicial Consent Decree, the extremely controversial and time-consuming procedure known as New Source Review.

CENCO, or my trust, still owns a refinery with a replacement value of hundreds of millions of dollars, on seventy acres of valuable Los Angeles County industrial real estate, plus millions of dollars in potential insurance proceeds, plus valuable reclaim credits, plus 100 miles of pipelines, and 47 operating permits. Although the final liquidation of the refinery will no doubt result in some loss, there is a realistic possibility that a significant portion, if not all of the investment, will be recovered over time.

Surely the youngster that you list as a "Senior Editor" knows the difference between an "investment" and "a loss." Regrettably, he allowed none of us the courtesy of learning about his faulty premise in advance, or giving an explanation to him of the true facts.

The investments that your reporter characterized as losses came from my personal funds which had been put in trust by me. Unfortunately, Mr. Roth again blurred the distinction between that which came from me and that which came from contributions to the charities of which I am Chief Executive Officer. None of the contributions from charitable donations were in any way invested in businesses owned by my trust. Surely having been given virtually unlimited access into our affairs, Mr. Roth could have gotten the matters correct unless he deliberately wished his comments to be more incendiary and damaging than the facts warranted.

When my oldest son, Tim, was CEO of New York Stock Exchange listed International Family Entertainment, Inc., he was considered one of the most able executives in the cable television industry. Tim was voted by the industry "Young Cable Executive of the Year." His program line-up on the Family Channel yielded advertising sales of $100 million per year more than the programs put in place by Haim Saban and the staff of Fox Family Entertainment which had purchased the company from us at 19 times cash flow-a total $1.82 billion. Dan Roth's snide put down of Tim was a despicable cheap shot, not even worthy of the National Enquirer, much less a respected business journal.

I have been a subscriber to Fortune for a number of years. However, if other reporting in your magazine is as factually inaccurate and biased as this, the magazine is to me no longer worth reading, and I would request that you immediately cancel my subscription.

Sincerely,

M. G. "Pat" Robertson