Woo’s ‘Greed’ Commercial

Los Angeles councilman and mayoral candidate Michael Woo airs a new attack ad beginning today, seeking to portray opponent Richard Riordan as a callous businessman.

* THE AD: The ad opens with shots of Riordan and the stock exchange. “Dick Riordan: Business Week calls him a major Wall Street junk-bond dealer,” a narrator says. “Riordan makes $70 million in junk bond deals. Only thing is that he fired 10,000 people to do it.” A shot of an unemployment line appears on the screen. The narrator then says, “When asked how he could cut deals like that, Riordan said, ‘Greed. I’m taking lessons in learning how to wave to the poor people.’ ” The ad closes with a passenger in a limo waving his hand out of the window.

* THE ANALYSIS: Riordan made an estimated overall personal profit of at least $74 million from his eight largest corporate deals--all but one a leveraged buyout, according to a Times analysis. Nearly 6,000 workers in the acquired companies lost jobs, but about 6,000 other jobs were created, for a net gain of 14 jobs, the analysis found. When asked in a 1988 interview how he could justify “flipping companies like cards,” Riordan responded, “Greed.” He also said, “I’m taking lessons in learning how to wave to the poor people.” Riordan recently said that he regrets the comments and that they were taken out of context.