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Tag: Senate
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Focus is on Nyc Charter Schools
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The Real Dirty Sexy Money
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Cablevision’s James Dolan has string of losses
As the chairman of Madison Square Garden, the company that owns the hapless New York Knicks, James L. Dolan should have already known a lot about losing.
But Dolan, 51, who is also a blues/rock singer, has learned even more about embarrassing defeats during the last few weeks.
Already vilified in the New York press as a rich kid whose dad gave him the Knicks as a plaything, Dolan is now depicted as a boss who tolerates bad behavior and bad language in the office.
In addition, a Dolan family plan to make Cablevision Systems Corp. a private company has been rejected by shareholders.
Cablevision, a dominant player in the New York City area, owns Madison Square Garden, which, in turn, owns the Knicks, the MSG Network, hockey’s New York Rangers, the New York Liberty of the Womens National Basketball Association and Radio City Music Hall.
All in all, Dolan may be finding new wisdom in the first lines of one of his bands’ songs: “Who told you life would be easy? Who said you would smile every day?”
On Oct. 2, a federal jury in Manhattan found that Madison Square Garden and Knicks coach Isiah Thomas had sexually discriminated against one of its executives.
The verdict came after a trial that made the Knicks front office seem like a locker room where boys were, alas, boys.
The Garden was ordered to pay $8.6 million to the executive, Anucha Browne Sanders. The jury found that the company had created a hostile work environment and that it fired Browne Sanders in retaliation for her complaints about inappropriate language and advances.
The jury ordered Dolan, president and chief executive officer of Cablevision Systems, to pay Browne Sanders $3 million for the retaliatory firing.
His father, Charles F. Dolan, the founder of HBO, is Cablevision’s chairman and founder.
Several Dolan family members also serve on the company’s board. Among them is Lawrence Dolan, Charles’ brother and the owner of the Cleveland Indians.
On Wednesday, shareholders rejected a $10.6 billion bid by the Dolan family to take Cablevision private. The Dolans had offered $36.26 a share. Some major shareholders said the price was too low.
Charles and James Dolan, who have sometimes feuded, put the best face they could on the rejection, saying in a joint press release:
“We see today’s outcome as a vote of confidence in the prospects of Cablevision, its management team, its 20,000 employees and the industry’s future.”
James Dolan’s total compensation for 2006 was $8.71 million, Forbes magazine reported.
Some of his earnings, over $300,000, have gone to political candidates, mostly Democrats. This year he has given to the presidential campaign of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.
Dolan is also the lead singer and rhythm guitarist of JD & the Straight Shot.
According the band’s website, mixing business and music gives Dolan “a sense of balance in his life.”
The Rocky Mountain News in Denver described the band’s first album, as getting “grudgingly good reviews.”
The grudging praise sometimes comes from Knicks fans. The team has not had a winning season since 2000-2001, despite a high payroll.
After 2005-2006 losing season, the club found itself in a soap opera feud with its coach of one year, Larry Brown. The melodrama ended with the Knicks buying out Brown’s contract for $18.5 million.
Last season, the team won 33 games and lost 49, certainly enough to make Dolan sing the blues.
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Dui is a Death Sentence for Lost Cast Members
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The Inherent Muckety of Times Wedding Announcements
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Mays and McCombs, the original Radioheads
The radio business has been very good to Lowry Mays and Billie Joe “Red” McCombs.
In 1972, they formed the San Antonio Broadcasting Company to buy an FM station for $125,000.
Thirty-five years later, that company is called Clear Channel Communications and it owns more than 1,000 stations. Its shareholders recently approved a $19.5 billion private equity buyout that values Mays’ stock at more than $1.1 billion and McCombs’ shares at about $190 million. The deal is expected to close before the end of the year.
In early 2000, when Clear Channel shares hit $95, the founders’ stock would have been valued at more than twice as much as now.
Still, not a bad rate of return, especially when the founders’ families hold a significant stake in Live Nation, spun off from Clear Channel in 2005. Live Nation is trying to perform the same consolidation magic in the entertainment industry that Clear Channel did in radio.
Another affiliate, Clear Channel Outdoor, trades publicly, but most of its stock is held by Clear Channel.
In addition to making money, Clear Channel has made important connections.
Along with Mays, his two sons, Mark and Randall, and McCombs, current board members include former Oklahoma congressman J.C. Watts and Ted Strauss, a former senior managing director of Bear, Stearns & Co. Strauss’ brother, Robert, was a long-time adviser to presidents, Republican and Democrat. Ted Strauss’ late wife, Annette, was mayor of Dallas.
Former directors include Dallas billionaire Tom Hicks and Vernon Jordan, a presidential adviser to Bill Clinton.
Live Nation’s directors include movie producer Harvey Weinstein and Henry Cisneros, the former U.S. secretary of housing and urban development, and a former mayor of San Antonio.
In San Antonio, McCombs may be best known as a car dealer, but his business dealings range widely. He is a past owner of the Minnesota Vikings of the NFL and the San Antonio Spurs and Denver Nuggets of the NBA.
Both McCombs and Mays have top-ranked business schools named after them, the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin and the Mays Business School at Texas A&M.
Clear Channel has been criticized for homogenizing radio across the country. Some of its controversies have involved Rush Limbaugh, Howard Stern, the Dixie Chicks and Madonna.
Critics link Lowry Mays’ conservative politics to company decisions, such as when some Clear Channel stations stopped playing Dixie Chicks songs after they criticized President Bush because of the Iraq war.
Clear Channel disputes that. “The radio company that banned the Dixie Chicks was Cumulus Media, not Clear Channel,” the company says in a “Know the Facts” section of its Web site. Some Clear Channel stations, in fact, increased their airplay of the Chicks, the company says.
Live Nation’s recent $120 million deal with Madonna certainly belies any notion of retribution against the Material Girl and her politics.
For Mays and McCombs, the original Radioheads, business seems to trump partisanship.
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Veco Corruption Trial Begins
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Hearst needs a re-write on TV takeover
TV can be a goofy business, but this couldn’t be the script the boys in Hearst Tower had in mind when they offered $600 million a few weeks ago for the small piece of Hearst-Argyle Television they don’t already own.
A special committee of Hearst-Argyle directors advised against the deal last week, calling it “inadequate” and saying it is “not in the best interests” of stockholders, other than Hearst.
That’s the same argument made by nine class-action lawsuits filed against Hearst-Argyle and Hearst Corp. since the buyout offer was made Aug. 24.
The stock market certainly agrees. Hearst’s tender offer is $23.50 a share for the nearly 27 percent of Hearst-Argyle shares held by others. The stock closed Friday at about $26.
Privately held Hearst Corp., founded by legendary newspaperman William Randolph Hearst, is one of the nation’s largest media companies. Based in New York City, it owns newspapers (including the San Francisco Chronicle and Houston Chronicle), magazines (Cosmopolitan, Esquire, O), interactive media and 20 percent of ESPN.
Hearst-Argyle owns 26 TV stations in markets reaching about 18 percent of the nation’s households. Stock analysts say the company should benefit by record spending on political advertising and by new retransmission agreements for its standard and high definition TV signals. Some analysts value Hearst-Argyle stock at $28-$32 a share.
Hearst-Argyle detailed the takeover saga, including information on the lawsuits, in a long filing with the SEC last week. The filing said:
In April 2006, at Hearst’s request, Hearst-Argyle executives first prepared a takeover scenario. At the time, the stock was trading at $23.23. The project was put on hold.
Independent Hearst-Argyle directors David Pulver and Caroline Williams are each being paid $150,000, plus expenses, to be the sole members of the special committee considering the offer. The committee met 19 times.
The special committee believes 2008 could be stronger financially than the company forecasts.
Pulver, Williams and director Bob Marbut do not intend to tender their shares to Hearst Corp.
Directors Frank Bennack Jr., John Conomikes, Victor Ganzi, George Hearst Jr., William Randolph Hearst III and Gilbert Maurer do intend to tender their Hearst-Argyle shares. Each is also a director of Hearst Corp. Ganzi is Hearst Corp.’s CEO; Bennack is its vice chairman.
One name conspicuously absent from the lawsuits is that of Florida investor Bruce Sherman. As of April, his Private Capital Management owned 8.4 million Hearst-Argyle shares. Sherman is the investor who put newspaper publisher Knight-Ridder in play, leading eventually to the sale to McClatchy.
Some of the lawsuits question the independence of Pulver and Williams. Both have been directors of Hearst-Argyle and its predecessor since 1994 and are included in the company’s medical insurance plan.
Pulver runs an investment company and is chairman of Colby College’s investment committee. He received $145,461 in compensation from Hearst-Argyle last year.
Williams, who works with the Nathan Cummings Foundation, received $140,961 in compensation from Hearst-Argyle last year. One lawsuit said the Cummings Foundation works frequently with the William Randolph Hearst Foundations.
Some of those filing the lawsuits worry that Hearst is holding so many cards that it could still force the transaction, leaving those who didn’t go along with illiquid shares.
As they say on TV, stay tuned.
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Legality of Hunt Oil deal “uncertain”
Hunt Oil’s controversial production-sharing deal with Kurdistan is “legally uncertain” and has “needlessly … Baghdad told The New York Times.
Dallas-based Hunt Oil is run by Ray Hunt, a close friend and advisor of president Bush.
Speaking anonymously, the official told The Times that the State Department advised Hunt before the… American and international oil companies.
On the web
Official Calls Kurd Oil Deal at Odds With Baghdad – New York TimesRelated stories on Muckety
Why Ray Hunt is so powerful