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

Precautionary-motive and agency reasons for corporate cash management

Monica McNeil

2022-10-05 08:24:00 Wednesday ET

Precautionary-motive and agency reasons for corporate cash management

Precautionary-motive and agency reasons for corporate cash management Bates, Kahle, and Stulz (JF 2009) empirically find that public firms have doubled t

+See More

Fed Chair Janet Yellen confirms with her successor Jerome Powell the final interest rate hike in December 2017.

Joseph Corr

2017-12-14 12:41:00 Thursday ET

Fed Chair Janet Yellen confirms with her successor Jerome Powell the final interest rate hike in December 2017.

Federal Reserve raises the interest rate by 25 basis points to the target range of 1.25% to 1.5% as FOMC members revise up their GDP estimate from 2% to 2.5

+See More

Internal capital markets and financial constraints

Charlene Vos

2022-10-15 09:34:00 Saturday ET

Internal capital markets and financial constraints

Internal capital markets and financial constraints Duchin (JF 2010) empirically finds that multidivisional firms with robust internal capital markets ret

+See More

Harley Davidson plans to move its major production for European customers out of America due to European Union tariff retaliation.

Rose Prince

2018-06-21 10:42:00 Thursday ET

Harley Davidson plans to move its major production for European customers out of America due to European Union tariff retaliation.

Harley Davidson plans to move its major production for European customers out of America due to European Union tariff retaliation. European Union retaliator

+See More

Fundamental value investors find it more difficult to ferret out individual stocks.

James Campbell

2017-06-03 05:35:00 Saturday ET

Fundamental value investors find it more difficult to ferret out individual stocks.

Fundamental value investors, who intend to manage their stock portfolios like Warren Buffett and Peter Lynch, now find it more difficult to ferret out indiv

+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 Nvidia (U.S. stock symbol: $NVDA).

Peter Prince

2025-09-24 09:49:53 Wednesday 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 Nvidia (U.S. stock symbol: $NVDA).

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