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

Ben Horowitz shares many hard truths, setbacks, failures, obstacles, difficulties, and disappointments through his rare unique entrepreneurial journey at LoudCloud.

Laura Hermes

2025-05-29 08:25:28 Thursday ET

Ben Horowitz shares many hard truths, setbacks, failures, obstacles, difficulties, and disappointments through his rare unique entrepreneurial journey at LoudCloud.

Serial venture capitalist Ben Horowitz describes many hard truths, lessons, and insights from his entrepreneurial journey of running LoudCloud from a Silico

+See More

The Chinese central bank has to circumvent offshore imports-driven inflation due to Renminbi currency misalignment.

Amy Hamilton

2019-07-07 18:36:00 Sunday ET

The Chinese central bank has to circumvent offshore imports-driven inflation due to Renminbi currency misalignment.

The Chinese central bank has to circumvent offshore imports-driven inflation due to Renminbi currency misalignment. Even though China keeps substantial fore

+See More

CNBC news anchor Becky Quick interviews Warren Buffett in early-2019.

James Campbell

2019-04-07 13:39:00 Sunday ET

CNBC news anchor Becky Quick interviews Warren Buffett in early-2019.

CNBC news anchor Becky Quick interviews Warren Buffett in early-2019. Buffett explains the fact that book value fluctuations are a metric that has lost rele

+See More

President Trump meets the CEOs of tech titans such as Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon.

John Fourier

2017-06-15 07:32:00 Thursday ET

President Trump meets the CEOs of tech titans such as Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon.

President Donald Trump has discussed with the CEOs of large multinational corporations such as Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. This discussion include

+See More

Harvard economic platform researcher Dipayan Ghosh proposes some alternative solutions to breaking up tech titans such as Facebook, Google, Apple, and Amazon.

Olivia London

2019-07-23 09:22:00 Tuesday ET

Harvard economic platform researcher Dipayan Ghosh proposes some alternative solutions to breaking up tech titans such as Facebook, Google, Apple, and Amazon.

Harvard economic platform researcher Dipayan Ghosh proposes some alternative solutions to breaking up tech titans such as Facebook, Google, Apple, and Amazo

+See More

U.S. tech titans increasingly hire PhD economists to help solve business problems.

Monica McNeil

2019-03-19 12:35:00 Tuesday ET

U.S. tech titans increasingly hire PhD economists to help solve business problems.

U.S. tech titans increasingly hire PhD economists to help solve business problems. These key tech titans include Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Apple,

+See More