Eddie Lampert was “The Next Warren Buffett” back in 2006. Now, he is the chairman and former CEO of Sears, a company attempting to claw its way back from the retail ashes. How did Lampert, an activist investor, go from creating the "next Berkshire Hathaway" to throwing money into the fire that he created of a former retail giant? Was it systematic, the unavoidable failure of retail?...
Every once in a while, we are in the right place at the right time. Howard Shultz had one such temporal victory in 1981 when he walked into a small coffee shop named Starbucks in Seattle's Pike Place Market...
Realty Income Corp. (NYSEl: O) names Sumit Roy, its president and chief operating officer CEO and appoints him to the board, effective immediately...
Regulation and state intervention in the economy has a bad rap in the US. The Trump government claims that its deregulation drive (mostly in the environmental and financial spheres), is at least partly responsible for the economic miracle. The other day, Trump wrote an op-ed in US Today warning against regulation and state meddling in healthcare, more specifically plans from the Democrats involving extending Medicare to all US citizens...
When celebrity hedge fund manager Bill Ackman appeared on the cover of Forbes in May 2015 as "Baby Buffett" (above), in retrospect it marked his " Sports Illustrated Curse " moment. Over the past three years, Ackman's perfect billionaire life has seemingly imploded, marred by a huge ($1 billion) short bet gone awry...
Taubman Centers ( TCO -0.6% ) says shareholders elected TCO director nominees Mayree Clark, and Michael Embler, as well as activist investor Jonathan Litt, who runs hedge fund Land & Buildings Investment Management. The preliminary vote count also indicates that shareholders rejected Land & Buildings' non-binding proposal regarding the company's capital and voting structure...
United Continental (NYSE: UAL ) says former FAA chief Jane Garvey has been selected as the new non-executive chair of the board of directors. Garvey, who has been on the UAL board since 2009, is the company's first female chair. Shares of UAL are up 4.55% YTD...
Low board investment in company shares is not in itself unusual for large corporations. Target's board of directors takes lack of direct ownership to an ...
Shareholders at Wynn Resorts (NASDAQ: WYNN ) voted against the executive compensation plan during the annual meeting held last week. Almost 79% of the shareholders that voted rejected the company's pay plan...
Halliburton ( HAL ) shareholders have voted against the company’s executive compensation for the first time. HAL says it is disappointed by the non-binding vote as executive retention is especially important during a CEO transition period, noting that other oilfield services companies have tended to aggressively recruit its executives for their own leadership teams; HAL says more than 25 of its former executives left the company to become senior execs at similar companies...
United Technologies ( UTX -0.4% ) is trading at a hefty discount and the company's businesses would thrive as three standalone companies , Bill Ackman says in arguments that back the case made last week by activist shareholder Third Point. UTX is “one of the last remaining conglomerates,” Ackman says...
ValueAct, a successful activist fund, has built a $1.2 billion stake in Citigroup ( C ). According to the WSJ it suggested Citigroup could boost its buyback plan from $40 to $50 billion. With a market cap of $185 billion that's a large percentage of stock to take out. Buyback programs of this relative size are rare. ValueAct seems to favor Citigroup for its old-fashioned treasury management for global businesses which is making it an important global money center bank...
Quick Take Mondelez International ( MDLZ ) has announced an agreement to acquire Tate’s Bake Shop for approximately $500 million. Tate’s has developed proprietary ‘thin-and-crispy’ cookies and other baked goods. MDLZ is acquiring Tate’s to launch a premium cookie segment and views Tate’s as having a ‘strong founder story’ while it has ‘cultivated a devoted consumer following across the country.’ Management will need to increase its pace to refresh its aging portfolio of brands if it wants to regain market share and mindshare. Target Company Long Island, New York-based Tate’s was founded in 2000 by Kathleen King ...
Elaine Wynn would like to see a Board of Directors at Wynn Resorts that is beyond reproach, has no skeletons in its closet, and does not have close ties to Steve Wynn. She labels some members of the Board of Directors as legacy directors, and is looking to ensure that the company resets with a clean ...
When Christopher Byron died last year, I was reminded of the years I knew him, my first two out of college, when I was an editorial assistant at the (old) New York Observer and he wrote a weekly column about executive compensation. The obscenity of executive pay at the time was still relatively new and it was awesome to hear him talk about the issue. Now executive comp is an old obscenity, like a grandmother's curse. "Feh!"..
A new movement in Synergy Pharmaceuticals ( SGYP ) is quickly gaining traction as more than 4.7 million shares have already been pledged in less than 10 hours to support an activist investor to take control of the company. This large group of 72 shareholders is asking fellow shareholders to pledge support for an activist campaign in the company. They are asking both Carl Icahn and Bill Ackman to get on board...
Both the substance of the proposed value-destroying transaction and the conflict-tainted process by which it was hatched are an insult to long-suffering Xerox shareholders and make a mockery of well-established corporate governance norms. Fuji - with the able assistance of Xerox CEO Jeff Jacobson ...
As shareholders with minority stakes in a business, we often place ourselves in the hands of insiders to act in our best interests as the stewards of our capital. Proper corporate governance practices go hand in hand with strong fundamentals in creating an attractive investment, with conflicts of interests ...
MicroStrategy ( MSTR ) added two new board members who bring valuable backgrounds and increase board diversity. Ms. Breya served as COO of Ionic Security, a data protection and control software provider; she served as chief information officer at Informatica (NASDAQ: INFA ) a business intelligence competitor to MicroStrategy; and she held senior marketing positions at Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE: HPE )...
Mallinckrodt (NYSE:MNK) nominates two new members, Paul R. Carter and Anne C. Whitaker for its Board of Directors . Both will join the Board pending shareholder vote at the AGM in May. Mr. Carter served as executive VP, commercial operations of Gilead Sciences, from 2014 to 2016. He is expected ...
The Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKSE) has issued its latest proposal to weaken corporate governance standards in order to attract Chinese listings that have gone to the US. The US has won most of the listings of China's privately held companies, including bellwethers Alibaba, Baidu and Sina...
Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM ) lead director Tom Horton tells CNBC that Broadcom’s (NASDAQ: AVGO ) latest bid was “just not even close to what the value of the company is.” Horton: “We’re on the verge of reaping the benefits of all the investments we’ve made in 5G, which is rolling out in a very profound way over the next couple of years...
Inseego Corp (NASDAQ:INSG) announced the appointment of Mark Licht to its Board of Directors , effective Jan. 5, 2018. Mark Licht has an extensive background in the telematics industry with over 25 years of experience in the formation, financing, and operation of wireless location services and ...
For more than a year, Herbalife has been telling investors and regulators that it is compliant with an FTC Consent Order. Our research has turned up problems with nearly every aspect of Herbalife's US business post-settlement: Training events, fitness transformations, Nutrition Clubs, Documented Sales, ...