Haslam says he’d get ‘zero’ benefit on real estate bid

NASHVILLE — Gov. Bill Haslam said Tuesday that while he doesn’t know what personal investments are in his blind trust, he will not benefit from the state’s office-building privatization contract with a Chicago management company in which he invested in 2010.

As a candidate for governor that year, Haslam disclosed a long list of companies in which he had investments of at least $10,000, including Jones Lang LaSalle, a real- estate management and professional services company. His administration has since awarded two major contracts to JLL, first to evaluate all state- owned office space outside of the higher education system and then to take over management of all state-owned and -leased space except colleges and universities.

Both the company and the state say no other state has privatized the operation of its entire non-education real estate portfolio. Part of the overall plan involves the planned sale of six major state office buildings, including the Donnelley J. Hill State Office Building in Downtown Mem- phis and the lease of 100,000 square feet of office space elsewhere Downtown to replace it. The deadline for building managers to submit lease proposals for the Memphis space is July 2.

Haslam’s 2010 personal financial disclosure did not detail the size of his investment in JLL beyond the $10,000 threshold. Before Tuesday, his office said there was no way to know if he still has any personal holdings in the company because after his election, he placed his financial interests other than the

family-owned Pilot Corp. into a blind trust managed by a trustee without the governor’s detailed knowledge of its investment activities.

After he presented state environmental awards during a luncheon at Lipscomb University in Nashville, reporters asked if he stood to gain personally in any sense from the JLL contract. He replied: “Absolutely zero. The record is clear I did not own it (JLL) by 2011. I can’t, obviously, say whether I do or not because everything I have is in a blind trust.”

Asked to clarify whether he knows or doesn’t know whether his blind trust has any JLL holdings, he said, “I don’t. It’s a blind trust. I do know that in 2011 I did not own it. If you look at my (financial disclosure) statements, in 2010 it says I did; in 2011 it says I didn’t. That’s the purpose of a blind trust. But I can 100 percent assure you there is no personal interest there and I can also assure you this is going to be something that’s going to be good for the state of Tennessee.

“This is a contract that’s going to save the state over $100 million over the next 10 years. I think that’s real important. I think it’s easy to get distracted when you do something big like this and everybody brings up questions. The reality is, when you change something big in state government — anything — it brings up questions and issues to people because this is a sea change in what we’re doing.

“But it’s also important to note that we’re going to save a lot of money, we’re going to provide better space, and we’re addressing some major life-safety issues which we had in our buildings that I’m glad we’re finally addressing.”