Soured Venture Puts Neil Bush Under Fire Again : Financing: The President’s son invested $3,000 in a company that paid him $160,000 a year. Taxpayers may absorb losses.

WASHINGTON — Neil Bush, the President’s 36-year-old son, invested less than $3,000 in an energy firm that paid him a $160,000 annual salary for nearly two years, while two venture capital firms lost $2.3 million of federally guaranteed investments in the company, a House committee staff report showed Thursday.

An analysis of the transactions by the staff of the House Small Business Committee, however, said there was nothing “illegal or improper” in the financing of the firm, Apex Energy Co., by the two investment companies. Both are controlled by a friend of the President, Louis Marx Jr.

Neil Bush resigned as president of Apex last April 1 after it failed to discover methane gas fields and recovered only a small amount of natural gas while reporting sharply mounting losses.

The two investment firms--Wood River Capital Corp. and its subsidiary, Bridger Capital Corp.--are in liquidation and owe the Small Business Administration a total of $29.3 million, the report said.

If the assets of the two investment firms do not yield enough money to repay the SBA, the government will absorb a loss, but the final reckoning will not be made for 30 months under terms of the liquidation agreements.

Rep. Pat Schroeder (D-Colo.), who released the report, described the events as “a shameful abuse of a small-business assistance program” and added: “This is a $2.3-million embarrassment, and the taxpayers may end up with the bill.”

The Apex case took on added importance because of growing defaults by investment companies on securities guaranteed by the Small Business Administration.

The staff report said Congress should consider whether to forbid investment companies that rely in part on federally guaranteed loans from making high-risk investments in energy exploration. Although such small-business investment companies are regulated by the SBA, the agency does not have control over their investment decisions.

Neil Bush and a partner, Brent J. Morse, an experienced oil and gas prospector, started Apex Energy Co. as a Delaware corporation on May 22, 1989, with a combined investment of $3,000. They held 51% of the stock.

Even though Wood River and Bridger were having financial problems at the time, the report said, they invested $1.5 million in Apex stock and loaned the firm another $850,000 in hopes that Bush and his partner would discover methane gas in Wyoming.

In a separate matter, a federal regulator ruled last month that Neil Bush engaged in conflicts of interest as a director of a failed Denver thrift. He and other former directors of the Silverado Banking, Savings & Loan Assn. face a $200-million negligence lawsuit filed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.