Nortel's Shareholder Slap
In another example of Nortel's bizarre communications strategy, the company took out a full-page, color ad in a Canadian newspaper earlier this week to publicly thank its departing directors for the excellent contributions. Are you serious, Nortel? The board - before it went through a minor overhaul during the last AGM - was at the helm when it approved a lucrative and tempting bonus program; it was there when Nortel went through its embarassing accounting scandal; it was there when the company stumbled through its financial restatement process; and it dropped the ball big-time when they hired COO Gary Daichendt only to have him quit three months later because he couldn't see eye to eye with CEO Bill Owens. So to spend some of its precious cash on a full-page newspaper ad is misguided, especially when the departing directors were already thanked for their contributions at the AGM in June. In many ways, it's like the company is thumbing its nose at shareholders who have had a front-row seat for this corporate car wreck over the past two years.
August 3rd, 2005 at 11:23 am
I think it's just a way for the PR department to suggest to the average Joe on the street that things are now going well with Nortel, especially at the upper echelons. John Q. Public knew that that there were some scandals going on at Nortel, and this is Nortel's way to reassure them that things are running smoothly [even if they aren't].
Frank