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

President Trump picks David Malpass to run the World Bank to curb international multilateralism.

Rose Prince

2019-02-07 07:25:00 Thursday ET

President Trump picks David Malpass to run the World Bank to curb international multilateralism.

President Trump picks David Malpass to run the World Bank to curb international multilateralism. The Trump administration seems to prefer bilateral negotiat

+See 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

Federal Reserve normalizes the current interest rate hike to signal its own independence from the White House.

Apple Boston

2019-01-08 17:46:00 Tuesday ET

Federal Reserve normalizes the current interest rate hike to signal its own independence from the White House.

President Trump forces the Federal Reserve to normalize the current interest rate hike to signal its own monetary policy independence from the White House.

+See More

Presidents Trump and Xi agree on an interim trade truce at the G20 summit in Argentina.

Apple Boston

2018-12-09 08:44:00 Sunday ET

Presidents Trump and Xi agree on an interim trade truce at the G20 summit in Argentina.

President Trump meets with Chinese President Xi again at the G20 summit in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina, in late-November 2018. President Donald Trum

+See More

Public sentiment turns quite a bit against Facebook in light of the public issues around fake news.

Apple Boston

2017-12-03 08:37:00 Sunday ET

Public sentiment turns quite a bit against Facebook in light of the public issues around fake news.

Sean Parker, Napster founder and a former investor in Facebook, has become a "conscientious objector" on Facebook. Parker says Facebook explo

+See More

Volcker, Greenspan, Bernanke, and Yellen contribute to a Wall Street Journal op-ed on monetary policy independence.

Olivia London

2019-09-23 12:25:00 Monday ET

Volcker, Greenspan, Bernanke, and Yellen contribute to a Wall Street Journal op-ed on monetary policy independence.

Volcker, Greenspan, Bernanke, and Yellen contribute to a Wall Street Journal op-ed on monetary policy independence. These former Federal Reserve chiefs unit

+See More