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

AYA finbuzz podcast offers fresh insights into the latest stock market topics, economic trends, and personal finance inspirations as of October 2019.

Daphne Basel

2019-10-31 13:38:00 Thursday ET

AYA finbuzz podcast offers fresh insights into the latest stock market topics, economic trends, and personal finance inspirations as of October 2019.

  AYA Analytica finbuzz podcast channel on YouTube October 2019 In this podcast, we discuss several topical issues as of October 2019: (1)

+See More

Apple pursues an early harvest strategy that focuses on extracting healthy profits from the Mac, iPhone, and iPad.

Monica McNeil

2017-05-01 09:45:00 Monday ET

Apple pursues an early harvest strategy that focuses on extracting healthy profits from the Mac, iPhone, and iPad.

Apple now pursues an early harvest strategy that focuses on extracting healthy profits from a relatively static market for the Mac, iPhone, and iPad, all of

+See More

Macro eigenvalue volatility helps predict some recent episodes of high economic policy uncertainty.

James Campbell

2020-09-15 08:38:00 Tuesday ET

Macro eigenvalue volatility helps predict some recent episodes of high economic policy uncertainty.

Macro eigenvalue volatility helps predict some recent episodes of high economic policy uncertainty, recession risk, or rare events such as the recent rampan

+See More

Agile lean enterprises strive to design radical business models to remain competitive in the face of nimble startups and megatrends.

Joseph Corr

2020-10-13 08:27:00 Tuesday ET

Agile lean enterprises strive to design radical business models to remain competitive in the face of nimble startups and megatrends.

Agile lean enterprises strive to design radical business models to remain competitive in the face of nimble startups and megatrends. Carsten Linz, Gunter

+See More

Nobel Laureate Paul Milgrom explains the U.S. incentive auction of wireless spectrum allocation from TV broadcasters to telecoms.

Rose Prince

2023-11-21 11:32:00 Tuesday ET

Nobel Laureate Paul Milgrom explains the U.S. incentive auction of wireless spectrum allocation from TV broadcasters to telecoms.

Nobel Laureate Paul Milgrom explains the U.S. incentive auction of wireless spectrum allocation from TV broadcasters to telecoms. Paul Milgrom (2019)

+See More

Paulson, Geithner, and Bernanke warn that people seem to have forgotten the lessons of the global financial crisis from 2008 to 2009.

Daphne Basel

2018-07-17 08:35:00 Tuesday ET

Paulson, Geithner, and Bernanke warn that people seem to have forgotten the lessons of the global financial crisis from 2008 to 2009.

Henry Paulson and Timothy Geithner (former Treasury heads) and Ben Bernanke (former Fed chairman) warn that people seem to have forgotten the lessons of the

+See More