Herman Cain touts his business experience, saying its what makes him the best candidate for US President. What does that experience show?

Herman Cain’s Aquila Dealings Undercut His Business-Acumen Claims

Until its demise, however, Aquila/Utilicorp was a large part of Cain’s business life from 1991 on, while it was transforming itself from a conservative, asset-heavy, international energy company that owned power plants and distribution lines into a merchant energy commodity trader that soared and crashed in a speculative frenzy. The company never recovered from 2001, the best of times and the worst of times for Aquila. Claiming at the time that it earned more than $40 billion, Aquila later downgraded its 2001 revenue to $3.7 billion, implicitly acknowledging that much of what it and others like Enron did in the energy derivatives market was fantasy trading.

Over the course of these boom-to-bust-to-sale years, Herman Cain, the businessman who thinks his financial skills qualify him for the White House, became the longest-serving independent director of the company, and was eventually selected as the company’s official “leading independent director.” As chair of Aquila’s compensation committee, he oversaw the award of millions in bonuses to the very executives presiding over this disaster. Also a member of its nominating and corporate governance committees, Cain’s tenure with the company has been marred, like the rest of those in its leadership posts, by a swath of settled lawsuits and government findings against the firm.