Ten years ago DEC was purchased by Compaq and I may have been a little indifferent to DEC employees who were affected by the event (sorry).
Today, my employer (Bell Canada) was purchased and will be taken private. Never in a million years did I expect this to happen. Oh well it just goes to show that no one is immune from this kind of stuff.
On a related note it looks like lots of companies will be taken private in order to maximize profits for their new owners (public + private pension funds) while wrestling control away from do-nothing upper management leaches. This might signal a paradigm shift for western businesses.
Neil Rieck wrote: > Ten years ago DEC was purchased by Compaq and I may have been a little > indifferent to DEC employees who were affected by the event (sorry).
> Today, my employer (Bell Canada) was purchased and will be taken > private. Never in a million years did I expect this to happen. Oh well > it just goes to show that no one is immune from this kind of stuff.
> On a related note it looks like lots of companies will be taken > private in order to maximize profits for their new owners (public + > private pension funds) while wrestling control away from do-nothing > upper management leaches. This might signal a paradigm shift for > western businesses.
> p.s. Shell Oil of Canada was just taken private.
Neil Rieck wrote: > Ten years ago DEC was purchased by Compaq and I may have been a little > indifferent to DEC employees who were affected by the event (sorry).
> Today, my employer (Bell Canada) was purchased and will be taken > private. Never in a million years did I expect this to happen. Oh well > it just goes to show that no one is immune from this kind of stuff.
> On a related note it looks like lots of companies will be taken > private in order to maximize profits for their new owners (public + > private pension funds) while wrestling control away from do-nothing > upper management leaches. This might signal a paradigm shift for > western businesses.
> p.s. Shell Oil of Canada was just taken private.
[I will assume that it is a private equity company that has bought]
There are some good aspects of this: focus is on value of company in 3-5 years instead of EPS next quarter.
But the buyers usually do not know anything about the business and when they sell again they go for the best price - and if best price is achieved by selling in pieces, then they will do that.
Richard B. Gilbert wrote: > Neil Rieck wrote: >> Ten years ago DEC was purchased by Compaq and I may have been a little >> indifferent to DEC employees who were affected by the event (sorry).
>> Today, my employer (Bell Canada) was purchased and will be taken >> private. Never in a million years did I expect this to happen. Oh well >> it just goes to show that no one is immune from this kind of stuff.
>> On a related note it looks like lots of companies will be taken >> private in order to maximize profits for their new owners (public + >> private pension funds) while wrestling control away from do-nothing >> upper management leaches. This might signal a paradigm shift for >> western businesses.
>> p.s. Shell Oil of Canada was just taken private. > I hope your resumé is up to date! Maximizing profits means cutting > expenses and YOU are an expense! You may get lucky but there WILL be > layoffs!
I think that profit maximization / cost cutting / layoffs is part of business no matter whether the company is public or private.
Neil Rieck wrote: > Ten years ago DEC was purchased by Compaq and I may have been a little > indifferent to DEC employees who were affected by the event (sorry).
Was it in 1997 ? I thought it was announced sometime in 1998 and implementation began in 1999 ?
> Today, my employer (Bell Canada) was purchased and will be taken > private. Never in a million years did I expect this to happen.
When Sabia took over a few years ago, he seemed to do a good job of cleaning up the mess left from the .com era. Then, he tried to switch Bell into those income trust thingy, which the government promptly put a stop to.
At that point, I started to suspect something was wrong. When companies start to play financial tricks it is usually because their core operations aren't doing as well as they lead us to believe.
When Comapq fired Pfeiffer and was not able to find a suitable replacement, they gave the accountant permanency, but his first task was to contact M&A bankers to find a buyer for Compaq (since it was clear he wasn't of calibre to fix it).
Sabia didn't strike me of being of the level of incompetance as Capellas. So it makes me wonder why, all of a sudden, Bell became open to takeover offers.
When Videotron (cable company in Quebec that was "family" owned) realised it didn't have the funds to upgrade its cable plant to support more TV channels and higher internet speeds, it struct a deal with Rogers to buy Videotron with garantee of investment to upgrade facilities. (this deal was scuttled for political reasons).
Perhaps Bell is in the same boat now. It realises it doesn't have the funds necessary to upgrade its old copper cable plant to fibre to the homes. Question is whether the new owners will allow such long term investments.
That is one beauty of taking a company private: no more constant scrutiny by authorities and that saves a lot of money. (consider Sarbanes Oxley in the USA which affects public companies).
I have no idea how quickly the new owners would start to make changes within Bell. Perhaps if their are honest, they will get Bell to stop advertising services at $20 in large letters when the fine print is in an unreadable font size and stipulates that the $20 is only for the first 3 monthsn and there is no mention of the actual price after that.
> -----Original Message----- > From: Neil Rieck [mailto:n.ri...@sympatico.ca] > Sent: July 1, 2007 4:05 PM > To: Info-...@Mvb.Saic.Com > Subject: Ten years ago...
> Ten years ago DEC was purchased by Compaq and I may have been a little > indifferent to DEC employees who were affected by the event (sorry).
> Today, my employer (Bell Canada) was purchased and will be taken > private. Never in a million years did I expect this to happen. Oh well > it just goes to show that no one is immune from this kind of stuff.
> On a related note it looks like lots of companies will be taken > private in order to maximize profits for their new owners (public + > private pension funds) while wrestling control away from do-nothing > upper management leaches. This might signal a paradigm shift for > western businesses.
> p.s. Shell Oil of Canada was just taken private.
Re: takeovers .. I still remember laughing when someone suggested to me that Compaq might buy Digital. "Heck, we are worth $10B - who in the world has that type of money?"
And as they say, the rest is history.
Fwiw, I can almost guarantee that your new organization will be adopting much more centralized IT strategies that emphasize real cost savings (as opposed to OS religion cost savings), so it will be interesting to see how all this shakes out. Imho, those with real DC experience are going to be in demand.
Having been through 2 takeovers, you can either look at this Bell acquisition with a view that says the glass is half full or half empty. There are some things you can influence and some things you can not.
Regards
Kerry Main Senior Consultant HP Services Canada Voice: 613-592-4660 Fax: 613-591-4477 kerryDOTmainAThpDOTcom (remove the DOT's and AT)
OpenVMS - the secure, multi-site OS that just works.
BTW, BBC is reporting this in their business news as a fairly high importance item. They also claim it is the biggest leveraged buyout ever in the world.
They also mention that Telus might still jump in with a sweeter offer.
But since it is just holding companies that are buying Bell, I don't think you will see massive changes. For Sabia to support it, he must have gotten a very sweet deal and garantee to not be fired for at least 8-12 months.
These equity firms like to buy such companies because they can then use their cash and borrow against assets to buy more companies. But the pension fun would have a different mentality since they need constant reliable revenus to fund retirement plans.
Not sure if they would make radical changes to Bell. Now, if Telus had bought Bell, we might really benefit since Telus has the software that allows competitive DSL services without that atrocious hack that is PPPoE. By removing PPPoE from Bell'S DSL network, it would remove one major overhead layer that is a pain due to routing and different MTUs.
On Jul 1, 9:15 pm, JF Mezei <jfmezei.spam...@vaxination.ca> wrote:
> Neil Rieck wrote: [...snip...]
> When Sabia took over a few years ago, he seemed to do a good job of > cleaning up the mess left from the .com era. Then, he tried to switch > Bell into those income trust thingy, which the government promptly put a > stop to.
We were screwed by two things (both under Jean Monty):
1) upper management thought that "convergence" meant we needed to buy other non-core companies like CTV-GlobeMedia
2) Jean Monty lost 13 billion dollars in two bad investments which meant were were too deep in debt to lay fiber (we needed to issue bonds to cover this debt)
On Jul 1, 11:45 pm, "Main, Kerry" <Kerry.M...@hp.com> wrote: [...snip...]
> Having been through 2 takeovers, you can either look at this Bell > acquisition with a view that says the glass is half full or half empty. > There are some things you can influence and some things you can not.
Like the Grolsch commercial on the radio, when your glass is half full you are looking to the bar tender to top you up :-)
> BTW, BBC is reporting this in their business news as a fairly high > importance item. They also claim it is the biggest leveraged buyout ever > in the world.
> They also mention that Telus might still jump in with a sweeter offer.
> But since it is just holding companies that are buying Bell, I don't > think you will see massive changes. For Sabia to support it, he must > have gotten a very sweet deal and garantee to not be fired for at least > 8-12 months.
> These equity firms like to buy such companies because they can then use > their cash and borrow against assets to buy more companies. But the > pension fun would have a different mentality since they need constant > reliable revenus to fund retirement plans.
> Not sure if they would make radical changes to Bell. Now, if Telus had > bought Bell, we might really benefit since Telus has the software that > allows competitive DSL services without that atrocious hack that is > PPPoE. By removing PPPoE from Bell'S DSL network, it would remove one > major overhead layer that is a pain due to routing and different MTUs.
I would have been happy being taken over by Telus. The Ontario Teachers Pension Fund was my second choice but I was happy to see them end up with a controlling (52%) interest.
p.s. I just saw this piece on BBC: Virgin Cable (TV) in Britain is is going to be taken private.
> Re: takeovers .. I still remember laughing when someone suggested to > me that Compaq might buy Digital. "Heck, we are worth $10B - who in > the world has that type of money?"
I had similar thoughts, $10B Wow!. Then a week later I saw an item in the local paper about some Canadian energy company buying out another for $9B Cdn. Not quite as much but in the same league. These were companies you have never heard of (and I can't remember either). We think IT is big business. Peanuts compared to energy.
-- ---------------------------------------------------------------- A L B E R T A Alfred Falk f...@arc.ab.ca R E S E A R C H Information Systems Dept (780)450-5185 C O U N C I L 250 Karl Clark Road Edmonton, Alberta, Canada http://www.arc.ab.ca/ T6N 1E4 http://outside.arc.ab.ca/staff/falk/
> On Jul 2, 2:08 am, JF Mezei <jfmezei.spam...@vaxination.ca> wrote:
> > BTW, BBC is reporting this in their business news as a fairly high > > importance item. They also claim it is the biggest leveraged buyout ever > > in the world.
> > They also mention that Telus might still jump in with a sweeter offer.
> > But since it is just holding companies that are buying Bell, I don't > > think you will see massive changes. For Sabia to support it, he must > > have gotten a very sweet deal and garantee to not be fired for at least > > 8-12 months.
> > These equity firms like to buy such companies because they can then use > > their cash and borrow against assets to buy more companies. But the > > pension fun would have a different mentality since they need constant > > reliable revenus to fund retirement plans.
> > Not sure if they would make radical changes to Bell. Now, if Telus had > > bought Bell, we might really benefit since Telus has the software that > > allows competitive DSL services without that atrocious hack that is > > PPPoE. By removing PPPoE from Bell'S DSL network, it would remove one > > major overhead layer that is a pain due to routing and different MTUs.
> I would have been happy being taken over by Telus. The Ontario > Teachers Pension Fund was my second choice but I was happy to see them > end up with a controlling (52%) interest.
> p.s. I just saw this piece on BBC: Virgin Cable (TV) in Britain is is > going to be taken private.
Yes Virgin Media which was NTL is being bought by a Private Equity company for 5 billion. Richard Branson apparently wants to retain his current stake in the new company.
