NEW After hearing thousands of last words, this hospital chaplain has advice for the living
Hospital chaplain J.S. Park opens up about death, grief and hearing thousands of last words, and shares his advice for the living.
It's not clear who's in charge at Rogers Communications Inc.
The telecommunications giant finds itself with two groups claiming to be in control. One side is led by recentlyousted board chair Edward Rogers, who says he was re-elected chair on Sunday by a new, hand-picked board. Opposing him are his mother, siblings and several other board members who say the meeting was illegitimate and that the five members who were replaced by Edward Rogers remain on the board.
With Edward's faction now promising to take their case to the British Columbia Supreme Court, observers say the ongoing saga will result in troubles for the company at every level.
"The longer this drags out, who makes the deals? Who signs the papers? Is it the hands of the new board or the old board?" asked Richard Powers, national academic director of the Rotman School of Management.
Until a court rules or both sides come to a consensus, Powers believes questions like these will dog the company and hold up not just day-to-day business but also strategic moves.
Caught in the middle will be Rogers CEO Joe Natale, who became the epicentre of the drama when recent media reports revealed Edward Rogers was trying to remove him from his position.
Edward, the son of late company founder Ted Rogers, wanted Natale replaced with former chief financial officer, Tony Staffieri. Staffieri left the company effective Sept. 29, with Paulina Molnar named interim CFO.
Edward's mother Loretta Rogers, whose family money Ted used to start Rogers Communications, and his sisters, Martha Rogers and Melinda Rogers-Hixon, opposed Edward's plan and a power struggle began.
All three hold board seats at the company.
Powers suggested that it will be difficult for Natale to stay on, regardless of the outcome.
"If Edward is successful, even partially successful, you really have to wonder if Mr. Natale is going to be able to retain his position and whether he or others be looking for the door."
Edward's odds of removing Natale are high because he remains chair of the Rogers Control Trust, the controlling shareholder, which, along with Rogers family members, owns 97 per cent of Class A voting shares.
To oust Edward from his role as trust chair, two-thirds or 67 per cent of the 10-person board would need to vote in support of removing him.
Phil Lind, a former vice-chairman at Rogers, and Alan Horn, who said he started working with Ted in 1979, have issued statements saying they support Edward Rogers and his role as trust chair.
Whichever faction comes out on top will have to deal with the company's plan to acquire Shaw Communications Inc.
The $26-billion deal was signed in March and is still awaiting regulatory approvals.
Competition Bureau spokesperson Jayme Albert refused to share what stage his organization's review is at or whether it is looking at the ongoing Rogers drama, but said it is aware of the company's recent governance issues.
Shaw's executive chairman and CEO Brad Shaw has reaffirmed his commitment to the takeover, but his company's stock has fallen in recent days amid the turmoil at Rogers.
"The longer this drags out, it puts that deal at risk, particularly if the stock price starts to drop," Powers said.
Rogers originally agreed to buy Shaw for $40.50 per share, but on Monday afternoon, it hovered around $34.40.
"At what point do they renegotiate?" said Powers. "Why would you pay $40 when you can buy the stock for $34?"
RBC Dominion Securities Inc. analyst Drew McReynolds and associate Riley Gray also think the agreement is at risk.
"Collateral damage now seems inevitable, and in our view, will only grow the longer a definitive resolution takes," they said in a Monday note to investors.
Without an immediate and definitive resolution to the ongoing dispute, McReynolds and Gray see two sources of "collateral damage irrespective of the ultimate solution."
The first is an executive management team that is less effective over the next year while it faces continued challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic and intensifying competition as telecommunications companies race to launch fibre-to-the-home technology.
McReynolds and Gray think the existing board will be "distracted, if not handicapped" as the boardroom battle goes on and Edward Rogers' board will be in a "suboptimal period of transition."
The second source of collateral damage, they say, will be "a difficult (but not impossible) road back to restoring investor confidence" around governance and executives.
Walied Soliman, a Norton Rose Fulbright Canada LLP lawyer representing Melinda Rogers-Hixon, said his client is keen on finding a resolution that respects her father's wishes and Rogers' 24,000 employees.
"There isn't it a morning or evening that has passed, where Melinda hasn't said to me...is there a path to settlement?" he said.
Asked whether she will pursue legal action or try to alter Rogers' corporate structure, Soliman said his client is still "observing the situation carefully" and "not looking to rewrite her father's will."
Meanwhile, Martha Rogers has taken to Twitter, vowing to keep fighting her brother for "destroying" her father's company and "making his biggest fear a reality."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 25, 2021.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 25, 2021.
Hospital chaplain J.S. Park opens up about death, grief and hearing thousands of last words, and shares his advice for the living.
French police cordoned off the Iranian consulate in Paris on Friday, where a man was threatening to blow himself up, Europe 1 radio and BFM TV.
More money will land in the pockets of some Canadian families on Friday for the latest Canada Child Benefit installment.
An apparent Israeli drone attack on Iran saw troops fire air defences at a major air base and a nuclear site early Friday morning near the central city of Isfahan, an assault coming in retaliation for Tehran's unprecedented drone-and-missile assault on the country.
American millionaire Jonathan Lehrer, one of two men charged in the killings of a Canadian couple in Dominica, has been denied bail.
Canadian banks that refuse to identify the carbon rebate by name when doing direct deposits are forcing the government to change the law to make them do it, says Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault.
A woman who recently moved to Canada from India was searching for a job when she got caught in an online job scam and lost $15,000.
The World Health Organization and around 500 experts have agreed for the first time on what it means for a disease to spread through the air, in a bid to avoid the confusion early in the COVID-19 pandemic that some scientists have said cost lives.
Prince Harry, the son of King Charles III and fifth in line to the British throne, has formally confirmed he is now a U.S. resident.
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.
Molly Knight, a grade four student in Nova Scotia, noticed her school library did not have many books on female athletes, so she started her own book drive in hopes of changing that.
Almost 7,000 bars of pure gold were stolen from Pearson International Airport exactly one year ago during an elaborate heist, but so far only a tiny fraction of that stolen loot has been found.
When Les Robertson was walking home from the gym in North Vancouver's Lower Lonsdale neighbourhood three weeks ago, he did a double take. Standing near a burrow it had dug in a vacant lot near East 1st Street and St. Georges Avenue was a yellow-bellied marmot.
A moulting seal who was relocated after drawing daily crowds of onlookers in Greater Victoria has made a surprise return, after what officials described as an 'astonishing' six-day journey.
Just steps from Parliament Hill is a barber shop that for the last 100 years has catered to everyone from prime ministers to tourists.
A high score on a Foo Fighters pinball machine has Edmonton player Dave Formenti on a high.
A compound used to treat sour gas that's been linked to fertility issues in cattle has been found throughout groundwater in the Prairies, according to a new study.