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

Facebook reaches a $5 billion settlement with the Federal Trade Commission over Cambridge Analytica user privacy violations.

Monica McNeil

2019-08-12 07:30:00 Monday ET

Facebook reaches a $5 billion settlement with the Federal Trade Commission over Cambridge Analytica user privacy violations.

Facebook reaches a $5 billion settlement with the Federal Trade Commission over Cambridge Analytica user privacy violations. The Federal Trade Commission (F

+See More

Rampant stock market fears shake investor confidence during the recent Fed Chair transition from Yellen to Powell.

Charlene Vos

2018-02-03 07:42:00 Saturday ET

Rampant stock market fears shake investor confidence during the recent Fed Chair transition from Yellen to Powell.

Quant Quake 2.0 shakes investor confidence with rampant stock market fears and doubts during the recent Fed Chair transition from Janet Yellen to Jerome Pow

+See More

Stock Synopsis: With a new Python program, we use, adapt, apply, and leverage each of the mainstream Gemini Gen AI models to conduct this comprehensive fundamental analysis of Amazon (U.S. stock symbol: $AMZN).

Dan Rochefort

2025-09-14 14:23:00 Sunday ET

Stock Synopsis: With a new Python program, we use, adapt, apply, and leverage each of the mainstream Gemini Gen AI models to conduct this comprehensive fundamental analysis of Amazon (U.S. stock symbol: $AMZN).

Stock Synopsis: With a new Python program, we use, adapt, apply, and leverage each of the mainstream Gemini Gen AI models to conduct this comprehensive fund

+See More

The Trump team now aims to make progress on health care, infrastructure, social welfare, and immigration.

Monica McNeil

2018-01-06 07:32:00 Saturday ET

The Trump team now aims to make progress on health care, infrastructure, social welfare, and immigration.

Subsequent to the Trump tax cuts for Christmas in December 2017, the one-year-old Trump presidency now aims to make progress on health care, infrastructure,

+See More

The U.S. Treasury yield curve inverts for the first time since the Global Financial Crisis.

Apple Boston

2019-04-09 11:29:00 Tuesday ET

The U.S. Treasury yield curve inverts for the first time since the Global Financial Crisis.

The U.S. Treasury yield curve inverts for the first time since the Global Financial Crisis. The key term spread between the 10-year and 3-month U.S. Treasur

+See More

HPE CEO Meg Whitman decides to step down after her 6-year stint at the technology giant.

Charlene Vos

2017-11-07 09:38:00 Tuesday ET

HPE CEO Meg Whitman decides to step down after her 6-year stint at the technology giant.

HPE CEO Meg Whitman has run both eBay and Hewlett Packard within Fortune 500 and now has decided to step down after her 6-year stint at the technology giant

+See More