Thursday, April 2, 2009

Down the rabbit hole called Corporate Canada


Re: Sabia gets $21-million on leaving BCE

This was one of the posted comments:

Alban Leurk from Canada writes:

So Mr Sabia run BCE for many years, the stock was flat and the deal he orchestrated after the Harper Government attack on Income Trusts, did not get through and yet Mr Sabia is well rewarded for all this... Mr D'allessandro from Manulife, another vocal opponent of the Income Trusts will receive over $12 million this year despite taking on risky investment on the very financial products manulife sold seniors devastated by the Trust attack... Meanwhile entrepreneurs and unitholders who got slaughtered by the decision applauded by MM Sabia and D'Allessandro will wait a long, long time instead of receiving the instant gratification they receive if ever. Canada's tax system is so punitive that 50% will go to CRA regardless if you build a company or if you damage it. And with this mentality, we Canadians are supposed to invest, produce?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

There is an interesting development in the US where a public sector pension plan owner of Chesapeake Energy shares is trying to requisition the corporate documentation behind the Board's $75 million "special bonus" to the CEO. You may recall that the CEO was forced into an involuntary sale of substantially all of his shares during the week of October 6th. This "bonus" makes him whole.

Where I and many others like me have an issue is the disconnect between Ottawa's belief that corporations have the shareholder's best interests at heart and that they will allocate capital to achieve that goal. If there is anyone in this email trail that is interested in fact based analysis I can be reached at 416-364-0813. I own income trusts as a result of chronic misallocation of capital in the traditional "growth stock" model.

James A. McIntyre
Senior Vice-President & Chief Investment Officer
Sentry Select
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Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld

Fillibluster said...

Sandy:

It’s a real shame that Michael Sabia only walked away with a $21 million bonus.

The really perverse and Alice in Wonderland aspect of his compensation misalignment with the interests of all Canadians, is that he would have received a $51 million bonus...if only he had been successful in turning BCE into a junk bond issuer that was only one quarter away from declaring bankruptcy on its $42 billion mountain of leverage buyout debt and depriving the company of any discretionary cash whatsoever in order to grow and maintain Canada’s largest telco, and in the process have to resort to jacking up the cost of essential telecommunications in Canada, since Rogers and Telus would be only too happy to have followed suit. That larger bonus would only have accrued if Sabia had succeeded in materially degrading Canada’s largest telco as an essential service provider and essentially handed control of the company to a bunch of carpet bagging US private equity firms based on Wall Street whose only contribution to the whole exercise would be to ensure that BCE never paid a dime of taxes in Canada, while accelerating 2,500 job losses even BEFORE they had taken control of the company.

I think the only person more deserving than Michael Sabia of this type of bonus is Jack Layton, whose blind support of Harper’s income trust tax, totally played into the hands of all the nefarious vested interests that were at play here, and as orchestrated by Jim Flaherty, Mark Carney and the Department of Finance (err fraud), with former Director General of Tax Policy, Michael Sabia, performing as lead conductor and greatest beneficiary.

I hear that Michael Sabia is now running the much embattled Caisse de depot, after winning out on an exhaustive global headhunting exercise that could only come up with two qualified candidates and which involved a grueling 5 minute interview?

Don’t you just love corporate governance in Canada? Michael Sabia and Dominic D’Alessandro must really make their colleagues at the Canadian Council of Chief Executive Officers beam with pride after they have walked away with a combined $36 million, for bringing adverse consequences to bear on BCE and Manulife during their time in office and for the compensation period in question.

Gag me with a spoon.

Brent

Anonymous said...

Wow ... as a Sentry Select investor - I am thrilled to see someone from Sentry is still working on this important issue.

Well said on the disconnect between Ottawa's ridiculous notions that corporations will act in shareholders best interests.

James - I love my trust units too as investments. Especially my Sentry stuff - it pays! Sentry stuff is also a great way for young people to get into the markets, safely and sensibly. Income Trusts are important to every demographic.