“After a disastrous year at Research in Motion Ltd., Wall Street and a wide swath of corporate Canada are now asking: Where’s the board?” Will Connors reports for The Wall Street Journal. “RIM shares hit a series of multiyear lows after warning on Dec. 15 its new BlackBerry won’t be out until later next year. Its current line isn’t selling well in the U.S., as Apple Inc.’s iPhone and other competitors gobble up market share.”
Connors reports, “Once Canada’s biggest company by market capitalization, RIM has shed about $30 billion in value so far this year. It’s now worth just over $7 billion, less than that other Canadian icon, coffee and doughnut chain Tim Hortons Inc. Amid the carnage, a growing chorus of investors and analysts are calling for RIM’s independent directors to take firmer control of the company, either by forcing a big strategic shift, selling the company or ousting co-Chief Executives Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, who also serve as co-chairmen.”
Connors reports, “According to a person familiar with the matter… The two co-CEOs also have long prevented other executives at RIM from accessing the board, or from gaining insight into what goes on at board meetings, according to another person close to the company.””
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Alternate headline: Two fools in one-trick pony costume run roughshod over RIM BoD.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
