CBS and its special committee of independent directors have decided to sue the Redstone controlling shareholders.

Daisy Harvey

2018-05-09 08:31:00 Wed ET

CBS and its special committee of independent directors have decided to sue the Redstone controlling shareholders because these directors might have breached their fiduciary duties. This breach can cause irreparable harm since the Redstone controlling shareholders who own 79% of CBS equity stakes have indicated a clear intention to force a merger of CBS and Viacom. This prospective merger may not serve the best interests of CBS's minority shareholders who own the residual 21% equity stakes.

CBS's independent directors propose to issue a stock dividend of voting shares to all the minority shareholders. This issuance would dilute the voting power of the Redstone controlling shareholders from 79% to about 17% but would not dilute the economic ownership interests of any CBS shareholders. This special dividend is permissible under CBS's corporate charter for its controlling shareholders and directors to honor their fiduciary duties of care, loyalty, and good faith.

Alternatively, the Redstone controlling shareholders might go nuclear by voting out the special committee of independent directors instantly by written consent with short shareholder notice. This coup attempt would allow the Redstone controlling shareholders to replace the board with their close friends who would then approve the CBS-Viacom merger plan. On balance, this complex and thorny issue shines fresh light on whether the current corporate governance regime should enhance independent directorship with greater voting power.

 


If any of our AYA Analytica financial health memos (FHM), blog posts, ebooks, newsletters, and notifications etc, or any other form of online content curation, involves potential copyright concerns, please feel free to contact us at service@ayafintech.network so that we can remove relevant content in response to any such request within a reasonable time frame.

Blog+More

Chicago finance professor Raghuram Rajan suggests that free markets need populist support against an unholy alliance of private-sector and state elites.

John Fourier

2019-05-21 12:37:00 Tuesday ET

Chicago finance professor Raghuram Rajan suggests that free markets need populist support against an unholy alliance of private-sector and state elites.

Chicago finance professor Raghuram Rajan shows that free markets need populist support against an unholy alliance of private-sector and state elites. When a

+See More

The Biden Inflation Reduction Act is central to modern world capitalism.

Andy Yeh Alpha

2023-02-28 11:30:00 Tuesday ET

The Biden Inflation Reduction Act is central to modern world capitalism.

The Biden Inflation Reduction Act is central to modern world capitalism. As of 2022-2023, global inflation has gradually declined from the peak of 9.8% d

+See More

Facebook, Google, and Twitter attend a U.S. House testimony on whether these tech titans filter web content for political reasons.

Amy Hamilton

2018-07-15 11:35:00 Sunday ET

Facebook, Google, and Twitter attend a U.S. House testimony on whether these tech titans filter web content for political reasons.

Facebook, Google, and Twitter attend a U.S. House testimony on whether these social media titans filter web content for political reasons. These network pla

+See More

President Trump remains optimistic about the Sino-American trade war resolution.

Monica McNeil

2019-02-05 10:32:00 Tuesday ET

President Trump remains optimistic about the Sino-American trade war resolution.

President Trump remains optimistic about the Sino-American trade war resolution of both trade deficit eradication and tech transfer enforcement. Trump now s

+See More

Mark Granovetter follows the key principles of modern economic sociology to analyze social relations and economic phenomena.

Charlene Vos

2023-02-21 08:27:00 Tuesday ET

Mark Granovetter follows the key principles of modern economic sociology to analyze social relations and economic phenomena.

Mark Granovetter follows the key principles of modern economic sociology to analyze social relations and economic phenomena. Mark Granovetter (2017) &

+See More

Our proprietary alpha investment model outperforms most stock market indices such as S&P 500, Dow Jones, and Nasdaq.

Andy Yeh Alpha

2019-02-01 15:35:00 Friday ET

Our proprietary alpha investment model outperforms most stock market indices such as S&P 500, Dow Jones, and Nasdaq.

Our proprietary alpha investment model outperforms the major stock market benchmarks such as S&P 500, MSCI, Dow Jones, and Nasdaq. We implem

+See More