Reply #5: This is a major mistake.. [View All]

[Grins]

The key (and not much of one) is what did the Board determine as his objectives in order to earn the options.

If it was steady growth, fiscal management, and long-term stability; then maybe OK.

But, if it is to increase shareholder value, then I think the Board should be fired en masse for being so stupid and cutting the company’s and long term stockholders throats. You’d think after all the reports and scandals of the past decade a board would have learned something!!!

Without some clause for failure to do that, I fear it is the latter case rather than the former, and Paul Anderson will do what’s in his own best interests and maximize HIS equity over the long term health of the company.

Enough of this. We’ve had horrible management controlling incompetent boards of directors for far too long. (Good book on this is “Barbarians at the Gate”; RJ Reynolds and Nabisco, fast paced and scandalous – and true. One of the CEO’s primary objectives was to “own” the board, so they would give him a free hand.) It’s time for the SEC and the “new” board at the NYSE, and the NASDAQ to step in with standards for board membership beyond being best buddies of the CEO. Maybe they can bring a halt to having idiots like…uh…George W. Bush on the goddamn AUDIT Committee of Harken Energy!!! Of course, with a Bush family pal in charge of the SEC, I don’t see much hope in that happening.

The real way to do it is for the large pension fund managers to step up and demand it, and take their money elsewhere if the companies and exchanges refuse to comply. We have already seen their power on the NYSE and with Putnam. Now, hit'em again, harder, harder….