From the category archives:

Private Equity

Cisco Restocks

November 19, 2007

The Cisco move is just the latest example of companies that put too much time and creativity into dreaming up elaborate financial schemes —schemes which, by some remarkable consistency of nature, always wind up adding to the CEO’s pay package. I am not a big fan of company stock repurchasing. While I am the first [...]

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Outrage of the Week: The Vanishing Stakeholder

June 22, 2007

In too many ways, the primacy of the ordinary individual —as citizen, employee and investor— which has long been the backbone of modern social progress, is being left to disappear amid an onslaught of privileged special interests, civil rights-invading bureaucrats, unwatchful corporate guardians and greedy financial contortionists. In Canada, it was the no-fly list, which [...]

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The Cerberus Deal: Chrysler in the Mouth of the Whale

May 16, 2007

Every few years, business needs to come up with a new savior. If only we had zero-based budgeting; if only we were driven by the search for excellence; if only we could stick to our knitting or follow the seven habits of seven successful people. If only… The newest addition to this grand litany of [...]

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Outrage of the Week: No Prison Time for Purdue’s OxyContin Scam

May 11, 2007

There can be few more heart wrenching moments than seeing a loved one racked with pain and being desperate to find them relief —except, perhaps, if you are the person in pain yourself. In the search for something that would help, millions turned to a new drug called OxyContin, which promised relief without the curse [...]

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BCE Board Suddenly Awakes

April 30, 2007

Last week, we observed that BCE’s board has taken too low a profile in the process to consider going private —so low as to be almost invisible. As we said then: The fact that management appears to be leading the process, and has selected partners it feels comfortable with, is also troubling. … It is [...]

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Is BCE Becoming a Contortionist?

April 26, 2007

Another puzzling sign surfaced at BCE this week, when its board announced that it had established a special committee to handle its friendly going private transaction involving Canada Pension Plan and KKR. Unless BCE has gone into the acrobatics business too, it seems to be making a habit of getting things backwards. First, there was [...]

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Are Hedge Funds the Saviors of Capitalism? Do Elephants Fly?

April 20, 2007

The Wall Street Journal’s Alan Murray suggested a rather novel idea this week. He argued: Hedge funds — at least the five percent of them who pursue activist investing strategies — look to me like the saviors of capitalism. They are in the best position to hold CEOs accountable – and someone other than regulators, [...]

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No Questions for BCE from Sleeping Regulators

April 19, 2007

The Centre for Corporate & Public Governance was the first to raise concerns regarding BCE’s press statements in connection with its private equity talks. It has since received several dozen emails and calls from individual investors expressing fears that they were provided, at best, an incomplete picture by BCE when it denied on March 29th [...]

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BCE’s Privatization Move Too Coincidental for Comfort

April 17, 2007

What a coincidence. BCE is now engaged in the very talks it previously denied were occurring to take the company private, with a group that includes KKR, the very company rumored before to be involved in the discussions —the discussions BCE said were not taking place. It might be regarded as a statistical amusement to [...]

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