From the category archives:

Nortel

Nothing Epitomizes the Folly of Nortel’s Life Like the Ending of It

November 28, 2009

The company, whose management and board have displayed such colossal contempt for common sense and good judgment and have inflicted so much damage on shareholders and employees, deserves to disappear into the winter snows of folly.  Its employees do not. Once again, Nortel – now just  the pathetic remnants of a once iconic global brand – [...]

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Who Killed Nortel?

June 22, 2009

More than two years ago, we asked the question “How long can Nortel go on being Nortel?” The final answer came this weekend, when it was announced that the remains of the company would be broken up and sold off, leaving not much except a once- respected, but long since discredited, name. You might wonder [...]

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Nortel Unplugged

January 14, 2009

The company’s falling into bankruptcy proceedings is the ultimate progression of decades of flawed strategies, management hubris and a clubhouse full of disengaged directors. With its Chapter 11 filing in a Delaware court today,  Nortel is making its final journey as the company that once aspired to be a world-class technology player.  It is unlikely [...]

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When the Pillars of Invincibility Fall | A Short Essay on Success and its Frequent Impostors

December 12, 2008

General Motors and Nortel look at bankruptcy. The BCE deal dies.  The Bernard Madoff fortune-making machine was a fraud.   The demise of once commanding forces takes its toll and causes us to have many questions about the permanency of success and the always-looming specter of disaster. This week revealed  things no mortal was ever supposed [...]

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Nortel, At Ten Cents or So

November 10, 2008

The company claims it is turning things around.  Given the sputtering pace of progress in altering course and staggering quarterly loss of $3.41 billion, investors must be wondering if what they are turning around is the Titanic. When its stock fell through the floor in 2006, Nortel’s  “solution” was to consolidate its shares on a 10 for [...]

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Crackdown in the Boardroom

June 20, 2008

Even Canada’s corporate crime cops are suddenly busy busting businessmen It was a day for the record books. Never have so many high profile former insiders in so many companies been charged with fraud on both sides of the border. The RCMP, a frequent object of criticism for its slow pace in bringing white-collar criminals [...]

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What Happens When Nortel Runs Out of Bodies to Lay Off?

February 27, 2008

In four of the past six years, from 2001 to and including 2006, Nortel has posted a loss. Over that time, the losses have soared past $30 billion. The years that made a profit accounted for less than $200 million. Out of the four quarters for 2007, Nortel posted losses in three, including a whopping [...]

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In Praise of the Fedora CEO

October 18, 2007

CEOs today make an estimated 400 to 500 times the average U. S. worker. When they made just 40 times the average paycheck five decades ago, and apparently had about one-tenth the incentive they have today, it makes you wonder how anything important got done. They just helped to change the world. That’s all. “It [...]

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Kudo of the Week: SEC Trumps OSC Over Nortel Penalty

June 8, 2007

Once again, the SEC has done the heavy lifting for Canadian investors by imposing, according to reports, a $100 million penalty on Nortel. Indeed, nothing could more graphically illustrate the contrast in approach toward the protection of the capital markets between the SEC and the OSC than this decision. For exactly the same kind of [...]

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