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What We Can Learn About Unity from Hostile Takeovers

Harvard Business Review

Power transfers can be fraught. But there is a path forward. Leadership Leadership transitions Government Mergers & acquisitions Digital Article

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Preview Thursday: Benefit Corporation Law and Governance: Pursuing Profit with Purpose

Lead Change Blog

I spent almost 30 years as a lawyer in private practice, advising business leaders on Delaware corporate law issues – addressing matters like preferred stock financings, IPOs, mergers, hostile takeovers, proxy contests, corporate governance and fiduciary issues. The following excerpt is from Benefit Corporation Law and Governance: Pursuing Profit with Purpose by Rick Alexander.

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Management Styles

Strategy Driven

That’s my concern that financial-only focus without regard to other corporate dynamics bespeaks of hostile takeovers, ill-advised rollups and corporate raider activity in search of acquiring existing books of business. Organizations should coordinate management skills into its overall corporate strategy, in order to satisfy customer needs profitably, draw together the components for practical strategies and implement strategic requirements to impact the business.

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The Big Picture of Business – Corporate Cultures Reflect Business Progress and Growth.

Strategy Driven

That’s my concern that financial-only focus without regard to other corporate dynamics bespeaks of hostile takeovers, ill-advised rollups and corporate raider activity in search of acquiring existing books of business. Organizations should coordinate management skills into its overall corporate strategy, in order to satisfy customer needs profitably, draw together the components for practical strategies and implement strategic requirements to impact the business.

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A Short History of Golden Parachutes

Harvard Business Review

As I examined with my two co-authors, Mark Kennedy and Gerald Davis, in a 2012 research paper in the journal Organization Science, golden parachutes for top executives were created with very specific goals: to ensure shareholders wouldn’t lose out on beneficial M&A deals and to protect executives from the uncertainty of being fired in the wake of the corporate takeover wave of the 1980s. This was quickly followed by the era of hostile takeovers in the 1980s.

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12 Reasons Crisis Leadership Trumps Crisis Management

N2Growth Blog

1) Sudden Crisis: Natural disasters, terrorist attacks, workplace violence, hostile takeovers, environmental spills, technology disruptions, etc. By Damian D. “Skipper” Pitts. Chair, Organizational Development, N2Growth. The media lives for a crisis, politicians look for ways to gain advantage in a crisis, and some businesses will even try and profit from a crisis.

Crisis 397
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Beware of Short-term Management, Not the Short-term Investor

Harvard Business Review

A low stock price can make the firm vulnerable to a hostile takeover, for example. This blog post is part of the HBR Online Forum The CEO's Role in Fixing the System. Much has been made in recent years about the pernicious influence of short-term investors on corporate performance. I believe these arguments often miss a nuance: It is not the short-term investor but short-term management that is the problem.

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What's Lost When Shareholders Rule

Harvard Business Review

which is by global standards pretty close to the textbook, would-be reformers often cite the British example (on shareholder input into executive pay, for example, or the ease of hostile takeovers) as something to strive toward. What exactly is wrong with the progressively greater control that banks, private equity investors, stock markets, and takeovers have exerted over the British corporate sector?

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An Activist Investor Lands in Your Boardroom — Now What?

Harvard Business Review

Founder and primary owner of Icahn Enterprises, Icahn had been tagged a corporate raider for his hostile takeover of TWA in 1985. Activist investors, though neither barbarians at the gates nor corporate raiders, can still seem very unwelcome. Anxiety, fear, even dread are among the predictable reactions in the executive suite and boardroom when they unexpectedly appear.