This is the fourth in a series of posts discussing certain issues and lessons for practitioners arising out of the recently settled dispute between CBS and its controlling stockholder.[1]  Relevant background can be found here and additional posts in this series can be found here.

In the first week of the CBS-NAI litigation, the Court of Chancery denied CBS’s request for a temporary restraining order (“TRO”), which would have prevented NAI from exercising its rights as a controlling stockholder to protect its voting control before the CBS board could meet and vote on a proposed stock dividend to dilute such voting control.[2]  In so ruling, the Court of Chancery resolved an “apparent tension” in the law between, on the one hand, past decisions suggesting the possibility that a board might be justified in diluting a controlling stockholder in extraordinary circumstances (arguably implying that, in such circumstances, the board should be permitted to act without interference by the controlling stockholder) and, on the other hand, cases recognizing the right of a controlling stockholder to have the opportunity to take action to avoid being disenfranchised.  The court found the well-established right of a controlling stockholder to take measures to protect its voting control “weigh[ed] heavily” against granting a TRO that would restrain it from doing so, and that “truly extraordinary circumstances” would therefore be required to support such a TRO.  At the same time, the court noted that it had the power to review and, if necessary, “set aside” any such action taken by the controlling stockholder after the fact (itself another reason why a TRO in these circumstances was not warranted). Continue Reading Lessons from the CBS-NAI Dispute: When (If Ever) Will the Court of Chancery Grant a TRO To Restrain a Controlling Stockholder From Taking Action to Prevent a Board From Diluting Its Voting Control?

Until Vice Chancellor Laster’s decision last week in Akorn Inc. v. Fresenius KABI AG,[1] no Delaware court had released an acquiror from its obligation to close a transaction as a result of the occurrence of a “Material Adverse Effect.”[2]  The cases previously adjudicated in Delaware all had required the acquiror to close, often despite a significant diminishment in target value and, in some, the court criticized the acquiror for seeking to avoid its obligations based on little more than buyer’s remorse.  Against this weight of precedent, the Vice Chancellor found that the grievous decline of generics pharmaceutical company Akorn, Inc. after it agreed to be acquired by Fresenius constituted a MAC.  While Akorn presents a stark set of facts and the Delaware Supreme Court has yet to have the final word in the case,[3] the decision nonetheless provides useful guidance to practitioners in shaping and navigating MAC clauses and related contractual provisions. Continue Reading Akorn v. Fresenius: A MAC in Delaware

This is the third in a series of posts discussing certain issues and lessons for practitioners arising out of the recently settled dispute between CBS and its controlling stockholder.[1]Relevant background can be found here and additional posts in this series can be found here.

As described in a prior post, on May 17, 2018, the majority of the CBS board (other than the three directors with ties to NAI) considered and purported to approve a dividend of a fraction of a Class A (voting) share to be paid to holders of both CBS’s Class A (voting) common stock and Class B (nonvoting) common stock for the express purpose of diluting NAI’s voting interest in CBS, with the payment of such dividend conditioned on Delaware court approval.  In addition to diluting NAI’s voting power from about 80% to about 20%, such dividend would have also diluted the voting rights of other Class A stockholders. Continue Reading Lessons From the CBS-NAI Dispute: Can Stockholders Rely on Stock Exchange Rules to Prevent Dilution of Their Voting and Economic Interests?

The Delaware Supreme Court has clarified that controlling stockholder take-private transactions will be reviewed under the business judgment rule, rather than the less deferential entire fairness standard, if the controlling stockholder self-disables by committing to special committee and majority-of-the-minority approval before “economic negotiations” take place, even if the controlling stockholder fails to do so in its initial written offer.  See Flood v. Synutra Int’l, Inc., No. 101, 2018 (Del. Oct. 9, 2018).[1]

The Delaware Supreme Court first announced in Kahn v. M&F Worldwide Corp., 88 A.3d 635 (Del. 2014) (“MFW”) that business judgment review applies to a merger proposed by a controlling stockholder conditioned “ab initio” on two procedural protections: (1) the approval of an independent, adequately-empowered Special Committee that fulfills its duty of care; and (2) the uncoerced, informed vote of a majority of the minority stockholders.[2] Continue Reading Delaware Supreme Court Provides Significant Guidance on Timing Requirement Under MFW

On October 11, Silicon Valley Bank’s NYC Office is hosting a forum on the M&A exit.  Our partner Ethan Klingsberg, who regularly serves as counsel to serial acquirors, as well as companies in connection with major liquidity events, will be joined by CEO/CFOs from top private companies to lead the discussion. The invitation and RSVP link may be found here.

This is the second in a series of posts discussing certain issues and lessons for practitioners arising out of the recently settled dispute between CBS and its controlling stockholder.[1] Relevant background can be found here and additional posts in this series can be found here.

The vast majority of public company shares are owned in “street name” – e.g., through a broker.  When holding shares in “street name,” a stockholder’s brokerage account reflects his or her ultimate beneficial ownership of such shares, but the records of the issuer (maintained by the issuer’s transfer agent) indicate that the broker (or more often, another intermediary through which the broker holds the shares) is the record holder of such shares.  In the typical case of “street name” registration, Cede & Co., as nominee for the Depository Trust Company (“DTC”), is listed on the issuer’s records as the holder of record of most of the issuer’s shares.  DTC, in turn, keeps its own account records, which list the DTC participants that hold those shares through DTC, including a number of brokers.  Finally, those brokers keep their own account records, listing the ultimate beneficial owners of such shares.  Contrast this with direct registration, sometimes referred to as “record ownership,” where the ultimate beneficial holder holds the shares directly and therefore the records of the issuer indicate that such person is also the holder of record of such shares. Continue Reading Lessons From the CBS-NAI Dispute: The Limitations of “Street Name” Ownership in Effectively Exercising Stockholder Rights

This is the first in a series of posts discussing certain issues and lessons for practitioners arising out of the recently settled dispute between CBS and its controlling stockholder.

Introduction

  • National Amusements, Inc. (“NAI”) owns approximately 80% of the voting shares of CBS Corporation and Viacom Inc., and in early 2018, NAI proposed that CBS and Viacom consider a merger. Each of the boards of CBS and Viacom formed a special committee of independent directors unaffiliated with NAI to consider and potentially negotiate such a merger.[1]
  • On Sunday, May 13, 2018, the CBS special committee met and took steps:
    • to call a special meeting of the full CBS board on May 17 to consider and vote on a dividend of a fraction of a Class A (voting) share to be paid to holders of both CBS’s Class A (voting) common stock and Class B (nonvoting) common stock for the express purpose of diluting – very substantially – NAI’s voting interest in CBS; and
    • to commence litigation against NAI in the Chancery Court of Delaware seeking approval of the proposed dilutive dividend and moving for a temporary restraining order to block NAI from taking certain steps as the controlling stockholder of CBS, including any actions prior to the special board meeting that would interfere with the proposed dilutive dividend.
  • On May 16, prior to the special board meeting (and prior to a scheduled court hearing on the directors’ motion for a TRO), NAI exercised its right as the holder of a majority of CBS’s voting shares to act by written consent to adopt amendments to the CBS bylaws (the “Bylaw Amendments”).[2] These Bylaw Amendments imposed a 90% supermajority voting requirement on any Board declaration of dividends or any board adoption of bylaw amendments, and also imposed certain procedural requirements for any such actions.  Since three of the fourteen CBS directors were individuals with ties to NAI, the Bylaw Amendments, if valid and in effect, would effectively preclude the declaration and payment of the proposed dilutive dividend.
  • The CBS board met the next day as scheduled (and following the court’s decision not to grant the TRO) and purported to approve the dilutive stock dividend by a majority vote of less than 90% of the directors, which would dilute the voting power of NAI to about 20% (and also dilute the voting rights of other Class A stockholders), the payment of such dividend conditioned on Delaware court approval.
  • On September 9 (after several months of motion practice and discovery), CBS and NAI entered into a settlement agreement providing for the rescission of the dividend, a reconstitution of the CBS board and dismissal of the litigation.

Continue Reading Lessons From the CBS-NAI Dispute: The Applicability of Rule 14c-2 and the 20-day Waiting Period to Stockholder Actions by Written Consent

The record breaking heat this past summer left M&A activities cold. Signa and Hudson’s Bay agree on a merger between Karstadt and Kaufhof. Signa takes over the lead role. In addition, Signa acquires significant real estate properties from Hudson’s Bay. Via Warwick, Morgan Stanley submits a takeover offer for all shares of the logistics company VTG. Haniel prepares its withdrawal from retailer group Metro with the disposal of a 7.3% share participation and the granting of a call option for an additional 15.2% of the group’s shares to the Czech firm EP Global Commerce. The acquirer secures an additional 9% Metro package from the co-shareholder Ceconomy. The Hymer family sells its RV business, valued at approx. EUR 2.1 billion, to its competitor Thor Industries. Schwarz Group’s entry into Tönsmeier, a waste disposal company, could alter the recycling business in Germany. Continue Reading

On September 18, 2018, The Conference Board and Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP co-hosted a panel discussion on the key findings from the Conference Board’s Job of the Corporate Director Series. Participants in the panel discussion included Victor Lewkow and Jared Gerber, partners at Cleary Gottlieb, and John Wilcox, Chairman of Morrow Sodali.

Moderator Doug Chia, executive director of The Conference Board, and the panelists discussed a number of topics related to the job of the corporate director, including:

  • the job description of the corporate director and lessons that directors can learn from company failures and crises;
  • the boards’ risk oversight and recommended practices for directors;
  • the board’s role in CEO succession planning;
  • board composition, including how boards can ensure they have the right mix of perspectives through board diversity, board refreshment, board evaluations and use of directors with particular areas of expertise;
  • expectations and best practices in director-shareholder engagement, in particular the role of directors in engagement with activist investors; and
  • the board’s interaction with management, including the asymmetric information risk in relying on information prepared by management and legal concerns raised by activist-directors using their own staff to prepare analyses of the company.

A replay of the webcast is available here (please note that your browser may require you to run an Adobe plugin to access this content).

On August 21, 2018, the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) issued Notice 2018-68 (the “Notice”), which provides initial guidance on the application of Section 162(m) of the Internal Revenue Code, as amended by the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (“TCJA”).

The guidance is limited to the definition of the term “covered employees” and the application of the transition rule accompanying the TCJA amendments. Certain aspects of the Notice will be of practical significance for many companies in connection with the potential deductibility of their executive compensation, even though the amount of the lost deductions may not be material to each company from a financial perspective.

The Notice states that the IRS plans to issue further guidance in the form of proposed regulations and solicits comment on certain aspects of Section 162(m) as amended that are not addressed by the Notice.

Please click here to read the full alert memorandum.