Blood in the boardroom as Imation ejects from tape media business Clinton Group execs in charge at struggling Imation have started restructuring the business to make it a tastier dish, discarding its tape media business, selling off property assets and starting a Nexsan array business restructuring exercise. Activist investors at the Clinton Group deposed Imation’s existing board chairman …
“Imation’s Board and management team continue to work closely with its advisors to explore all potential strategic alternatives designed to maximise shareholder value.”
There's the key... "maximize shareholder value". Probably all the patents they own will be handed over to a patent toll as part of the maximizing shareholder value without having things like employees getting the way of the cash flow to the shareholder pockets.
This is just a modern form of piracy, no longer do they board your ship and run off with your gold and women, now they land in your boardroom and asset strip your company while claiming they are making things better.
Good companies and their reputations take years to build up, but all this is undone by greed.
This should be illegal. Or at the very least so called ordinary investors should be smart enough to recognise a quick profit vs a long term investment.
Like its never happened before?
I remember a certain Internet investor selling off his mighty corporate for $300m in 2000, then buying it back for lots less a year or to later, acquiring more businesses, stripping assets, blah, blah.
Short term investing has been around for a while now.......
This is what happens when there is a shareholder proxy fight and the shareholders haven't researched who they are letting infiltrate the board. The board member behind the proxy fight/temporary CEO is a liquidator, not a CEO who wants to grow any business. Yesterday he told all the loyal employees when giving 60 day WARN notice that you can't get water from a stone, hence, no severance, yet he is diverting millions of dollars cash from Imation to himself and to his separate company. He has undone in a couple months important business relationships that took 20 years for the company to build. Truly sad to watch a good company get dismantled with so little planning and thought.
Cannot agree more with you that it took 20 years to build a good company, but just 20 weeks to ruin it completely. While Imation new leadership is taking the company hard-earned $80 million cash for "strategic" shopping, what is not mentioned is that they are not making their outstanding dues to the supplying vendors and manufacturers in Asia. Maybe this is the new leadership's way to build shareholding value by defaulting its payment liabilities.
Unfortunately the writing was on the wall a long time ago! Imation probably peaked in 2005 /6 under Bruce Henderson. The next guy, didn't share his vision or have a vision of his own. The board allowed Frank to remain in place long enough to destroy any chance of Imation having a future.
Since this time, it's been a car crash in slow motion!
If you've used any of the dark blue TDK DVD-Rs or DVD+Rs (the ones with swirly pattern) in the past 10 years, for goodness sake CHECK THEM IMMEDIATELY and back them up ASAP! Half of the 50 I have here (mostly written to in 2008/9) are no longer readable. They are branded TDK - but that's misleading. They are NOT TDK discs (I have a 2001-vintage TDK DVD-R - i.e. one that was actually made by TDK, rather than in an outsourced crap-factory in China...or wherever the bonus-motivated buyer could get the best deal - that still reads perfectly). In 2007, Imation took over the TDK media division - and, incredibly, was allowed to continue using the brand. Eight or so years later, Imation pulled out of 'consumer media', changed its name (to Glassbridge Enterprises) and shifted focus to global corporate d*ck-waving neoliberal hyperb*llocks (e.g, 'investment' and 'asset management'). I guess all this financialisation sh*t is more lucrative than actually, like, making...or at least selling...stuff! In the short-term, at any rate. I have contacted Glassbridge, in order to discover if they still have any responsibility (genuine TDK products came with a 'limited lifetime' guarantee). Thankfully, the contents of most of my discs are held elsewhere; my known losses so far amount to TV programmes captured with a Panasonic DVD recorder. The morals of the story? Neoliberalism is a cost-driven race to the bottom, and we (the majority) end up with crap products, insecure jobs and a dying planet. It must be destroyed, before it destroys us. Oh, and don't be brandwashed!
N.B. I have 10-20 year old CD-Rs and plenty of 'no name' DVD-Rs. All have a much lower long-term failure rate than this Imation/TDK cr*p. 'Life on record'? I wouldn't trust ANYTHING to TDK (never mind my life!) any more. Yes, I'm angry. But if you ain't angry nowadays, then you ain't paying attention!
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