But the financial disclosure report Huntsman filed last year when he was a globe-trotting trade representative for the Bush administration showed his net worth between $5 million and $25 million.
That's wealthy, to be sure. But it may be a bit shy of the super-rich image that has dogged Huntsman during his campaign against Democrat Scott Matheson Jr. for the state's highest elected office.
Matheson was also required to file the same executive branch personnel public financial disclosure report when he served as U.S. Attorney for Utah from 1993 to 1997. But Matheson's reports were destroyed last year under the U.S. Office of Government Ethics' policy that retains disclosure records for a maximum of six years, according to an agency official.
Responding to a request made earlier this month by The Salt Lake Tribune, the ethics office Tuesday released Huntsman's disclosure reports, the most recent of which was filed in July 2003 following his April 1 resignation as deputy trade representative, in which he served as lead U.S. negotiator on deals with Africa, South Asia and East Asia.
Beginning with a 95-page disclosure for his 2001 nomination to his final 2003 report that ran only 14 pages, the records show Huntsman's confirmation as ambassador required him to sell off much his personal stock portfolio as well as the investments of his wife Mary Kaye and stocks held in the trusts he managed for his six children. Such divestitures are customary for top-level political appointees in order to avoid the appearance of conflicts of interest.
At the time of his nomination Huntsman was earning $1 million annually from Huntsman Corp., the eponymous $10 billion global petrochemical conglomerate founded by his father, philanthropist Jon Huntsman Sr.
Jon Jr. is CEO and chairman of Huntsman Family Holdings Co., and owns 1.5 percent of that holding company, a stake that he listed as his most valuable asset in the 2003 report with an estimated worth between $5 million and $25 million. All holdings listed in the disclosures are reported in broad ranges. In all of his disclosures, Huntsman listed no liabilities.
When Huntsman resigned to join the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, he received severance payments of $260,000 in October 2001 and $416,000 in January 2002. The corporation also stopped making contributions to a retirement package that deferred portions of his compensation, stock benefits and pension until age 65, which is valued between $665,000 and $1.3 million.
Huntsman also vowed that upon confirmation, he would convert all the equity he, his wife and children held in the family businesses into preferred, non-voting stock with a flat 12 percent dividend. In 2002, he informed ethics auditors that the conversion had been delayed due to a recapitalization and restructuring of Huntsman Cos. At the time, the world's largest privately owned chemical manufacturer was teetering on bankruptcy and Huntsman noted in his 2002 report that if restructuring of the company did not happen, the estimated value of his assets "could be significantly less."
Huntsman resigned from federal service as the firm began to rebound from losses written off during restructuring. But five months after Huntsman left government employment, a reviewing official for the ethics office said in a handwritten note on the report that a request had been made of Huntsman to provide additional information to identify the "harmonization" of the assets he listed with the transactions he reported. No additional correspondence was released by the ethics office to The Tribune.
Besides divesting ownership shares of companies that may present a conflict of interest in his trade negotiations, Huntsman also stepped down from more than 100 positions he held on boards directing corporations, partnerships, nonprofit groups and limited ventures upon his confirmation.
Those directors' seats included numerous positions on Huntsman Corp. subsidiaries in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Hong Kong, Venezuela, United Kingdom, Mexico, Germany, Korea, Virgin Islands, Netherlands, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Tokyo. His community boards included the Utah Symphony, Utah Opera, Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, Karl Malone Foundation for Kids, KUED-TV and Intermountain Health Care.
He also gave up his $25,000 annual position as a director of the family corporation and the $25,000 he was paid as director of his children's investment trusts. He also resigned as a director of Owens Corning, which paid him $10,250 annually, and as a director of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, which paid him $837 annually.
