Texas Children's Houston Open

Memorial Park Golf Course



The Loop

Northern Trust: Entertaining without entertainment

December 30, 2009

Northern Trust intends to entertain its clients at the Northern Trust Open in Los Angeles in February, but it will do so while scaling back on the kind of entertainment that drew the ire of Congress last year, the Financial Times is reporting.

The company's parties that included musical entertainment from Sheryl Crow and Earth, Wind & Fire became a lightning rod for criticism from Congress for entertaining so lavishly after t had accepted government money in the Troubled Assets Relief Program.

"We're not having any live entertainment," Rick Waddell, chairman and chief executive of Northern Trust told the Financial Times. "It's going to be more of a traditional hospitality event. We've pared our budget back."

The bank "clearly misjudged the political environment," Waddell said, while noting that politicians "were looking for targets."

-- John Strege