- This deal was a farce on the entire notion of shareholder rights. An under-performing company feels pressure from shareholders to perform and, rather than become more customer-focused, offer better pricing and product lines and actually become a better business, the Board of BCE basically allowed the investment bankers, hedge funds, pension funds and institutional players to run rough-shod all over the business and enrich themselves on some crazed debt and fee fueled deal with a million moving parts.
- Do Michael Sabia (the CEO who came up with this idea) and Robert Milton (the CEO of Air Canada) have drinks and share ideas on how to take a monopoly and screw it up?
Article here. Brilliant.
B, your thoughts?
1 comments:
Hey B,
Sorry for waiting so long to chime in. Here's what I think about this:
- Board governance models are flawed and (at the risk of sounding a tad more socialist than usual) taking into account broader stakeholders does actually play into long-term sustainability. Surprise!
- Lesson two - there are other groups of stakeholders (not simply shareholders) who need a form of representation. This makes me think about Jonathan Wellum questioning which interests a board should represent - the shareholder who is short-term in thinking and ownership (snip n flip), or those seeking to build long-term value.
Post a Comment