Warren Buffet, the unbelievably homespun billionaire and long-time Coca-Cola director and shareholder, has been a staunch critic of options accounting and called the soft drink maker's accounting change a "classy move, " adding that he would feel "far more comfortable" if other companies followed its lead.
It happens that Christopher Forbes, vice chairman of our parent company, sat as a director (and shareholder) of Raffles, though he was not part of the negotiations--and he did not figure in our conceptualizing or producing this story.
"It's a watershed moment for shareholder activism, " says Bruce Goldfarb, senior managing director and general counsel at Georgeson Shareholder.
The ramifications for public company boards of the reawakened and newly charged SEC are numerous, particularly in the areas of risk management, compensation, shareholder communications and director qualifications, among others.
Bartlett will remain a shareholder and non-executive director while Adam Pearson will continue in his current role as head of football operations.
Even well-known companies like Canon, Toyota, Nintendo and Suzuki have not appointed even one independent director to oversee operations and help protect shareholder value.
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For example, the listed PT Visi Media Asia (known as Viva), in which his family firm is a shareholder and he is president director, will also create a new sports channel called Sports One.
Canning Fok, managing director of telecoms giant Hutchison Whampoa, Mannesmann's biggest shareholder, has testified that he first proposed the bonuses.
Nell Minow, director of The Corporate Library, said in an interview last week that shareholder revolts typically do not result in a 100% victory.
"Each of the defendants betrayed Nortel's investors and their misconduct gave rise to billions of dollars in shareholder losses, " said Linda Thomsen, the SEC's enforcement director.
LVMH, a successful French luxury-goods group whose customers are mostly women, has had just one female director over the past ten years: Delphine Arnault, daughter of the firm's chief executive and controlling shareholder.
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