A son of the late publishing magnate Robert Maxell thinks there is no chance Maxwell employees will recover any of the hundreds of millions of dollars in pension funds that disappeared, a report said Wednesday.
Kevin Maxwell also was quoted as saying that much of the criticism calling his father a crook is fair and that there's "not the remotest possibility" his father's death a month ago was a suicide.Investigators have said Maxwell siphoned money from his companies in a desperate attempt to deal with his empire's crushing debts. They also have said some questionable transactions may have occurred after Maxwell's death.
In an interview published Wednesday by the Daily Mirror, Robert Maxwell's London flagship newspaper, Kevin Maxwell was quoted as saying of the pensioners:
"I am desperately sorry for them. But I have to be honest. The debts are so enormous that when everything is sorted out there will be nothing left."
One week ago, the Serious Fraud Office, a government prosecution agency, began investigating Mirror Group Newspapers PLC's pension fund assets and related matters. The company says about $630 million was taken from its pension fund without authority.
Kevin Maxwell spoke with the Daily Mirror as he flew to New York on Tuesday for talks on the future of the Daily News, which his father bought in March. Kevin Maxwell is now the publisher.
In a report today, The Washington Post quoted unidentified sources as saying Robert Maxwell never created a pension fund for Daily News managers he promised to start with funding from Tribune Co., which sold the paper to Maxwell. Pension money accumulated before the sale wasn't affected, it said.
Revelations of Maxwell's financial manipulations have led to numerous newspaper characterizations of him as a crook.