Imperial management

Investment Analysis Clubs Macro Economic Trends and Risks
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There has been a trend, for several years, of management increasingly saying shareholders have no say in how the company is run. Boards are already stacked with people who will rubber stamp whatever management wants. Eliminating accountability to shareholders makes management, who are actually employees of the shareholders, law unto themselves.

I was checking up on the status J&J’s scummy tactic to duck it’s talc liability, and found this:

J&J, plowing ahead with talc bankruptcy strategy, faces investor push to pull product worldwide

Activist investor platform Tulipshare wants to leverage a vote to stop J&J from selling its talc-based powder around the world. J&J currently faces nearly 40,000 lawsuits related to talc safety concerns,

In a letter to the SEC, lawyers for J&J asked officials to not require the company to bring the issue to a vote at its annual meeting. The proposal would weigh on J&J’s litigation strategy and “intrude upon management’s exercise of its day-to-day business judgment with respect to pending litigation in the ordinary course of business operations,” the J&J lawyers wrote.

https://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/j-j-plowing-ahead-bankru…

I have seen other managements petition the SEC to allow them to deny shareholder items to be put to a vote. I see management pushing back on proposals to require disclosure of lobbying activities, saying who they bribe and how large the bribes are, and why they are paid, are none of the shareholder’s business. Now, they try to bury a proposal to stop selling a product, leaving the company open to more liability around the world.

Isn’t that shiny?

Steve

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There has been a trend, for several DECADES, of management increasingly saying shareholders have no say in how the company is run.

It’s what class “A” shares with 10 times the voting power are all about. I hope you don’t mind the editing. :wink:

In reality the small individual investor never had a say in the company’s management for all practical purposes. Our only real option was to fire the whole management team by selling the shares. The class “A” shares are meant to keep the huge investment funds at bay.

I used to be upset by class “A” shares but since they have no practical effect on my returns I’ve stopped bothering about them. I still dislike the Google management team as well as most so called ‘social’ media. Most are most unsociable.

The Captain
sometimes agrees with Steve LOL

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Our only real option was to fire the whole management team by selling the shares.

Problem is, I really like the businesses some companies are in, but hate the management.

Honeywell apparently has it’s asbestos liability back, because the bankruptcy court threw out the multibillion dollar indemnity that they saddled Garret with then they spun it off.

J&J has that ultra-shiny scheme to dump it’s US talc liability. I suspect their consumer products spinoff is a backup, in case their “Texas two-step” is thrown out by the court, to dump off their talc liability on another entity that is set up to fail.

Boeing, saddled with multiple layers of Welchian management, that can only think of how to shaft their employees and fob shoddy products off on customers.

Steve

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