I have seen the future and YOU don't work

Quote of note:

The real reason Cox and others are weighing going private is the money they expect to make. With most of the costly network upgrades complete at Cox Communications, Mrs. Anthony and Mrs. Chambers can just sit back and collect cash.

And at $32 a share - which is about $3,950 per subscriber - the cost of taking the company private, if approved by a special independent committee of the Cox Communications board, would be cheap relative to historical valuations.

I don't look forward to a future of great corporate behemoths roaming the landscape with no connection to humans except profit motive. Thanks to some fatuous interpretations of the 14th amendment, corporations (being legal persons) have all the rights Black folks are supposed to have. The only leverage you have on private companies is the decision to buy their stuff or not. With some companies that's not much leverage at all.

Anyway…

Kissing the Public Goodbye
By ANDREW ROSS SORKIN
Published: August 8, 2004

WHO doesn't want a bit of privacy?

The family that controls Cox Communications announced plans last week to take the publicly held cable company private and, as is the way of corporate America and Wall Street, now lots of others are toying with the same concept.

…Cox and others contemplating such a move seem to be fed up with all those pesky shareholders, quarterly earnings targets and second-guessing research analysts. With stocks generally down - and cable industry stocks down a lot - some controlling shareholders have decided it may be best to go private so they can milk their cash cows and work out kinks in the business by themselves rather than on CNBC.

James C. Kennedy, chairman and chief executive of Cox Enterprises, which is controlled by Barbara Cox Anthony and Anne Cox Chambers, said as much in his proposal to the board of Cox Communications.

"The competitive demands of the cable industry when balanced against the need for a public company to be vigilant with respect to short-term results have convinced us that private ownership of this business is desirable and will assist C.C.I. in attaining its business objectives," he wrote.

That a company like Cox would go private simply because of the annoyance of being a public company is not the whole story, though.

Posted by Prometheus 6 on August 8, 2004 - 4:46am :: Economics
 
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Well, if you seriously believe shareholders get a great deal of say in how a public company operates, then this wave of going private can be a bad thing.

But you know, some of the most progressive companies are also privately held. And they're going to stay that way once you go public you have to go for maximizing profit or else you're going to get sued for breach of fiduciary duty to the shareholders.

My personal favorite example is New Belgium Brewing Company (makers of Fat Tire). In addition to giving their employees great benefits, they have gone to using 100% wind generated electricity for their brewery. No way a public company could get away with doing that -- intentionally buying more expensive electricity hurts the bottom line.

Posted by  Colorado Luis (not verified) on August 8, 2004 - 8:14pm.

It's not the shareholders but the laws publicly held corporations have to deal with.

I grant privately held corporations can be responsible citizens. But what are the odds?

Posted by  P6 (not verified) on August 8, 2004 - 9:31pm.