I don't think Bill Miller of Legg Mason fame would let Jeff Bezos cook the books.
Never under estimate the power of Bill Miller and LM.
>>Delivering a Lecture: A Corporate Chief Is Taken to Task
Ten days ago, William H. Miller III, one of the market's most successful mutual fund managers and a recent critic of the board at Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide, picked up the phone to find Barry S. Sternlicht, Starwood's chief executive, on the other end.
Mr. Sternlicht built Starwood into one of the world's largest hotel chains by buying bigger rivals and starting the unexpectedly popular W Hotels, nearly all before his 40th birthday. He forced out many of his deputies along the way, received a raise last year even as profits fell and, provoking Mr. Miller's ire, recently decided not to heed more than three-quarters of his shareholders, who passed a resolution asking for changes to the board.
But Mr. Miller gave him little of the deference to which chief executives had become accustomed in the booming 90's. Instead, Mr. Sternlicht received a lecture on democracy.
"Barry, my issue is simple," Mr. Miller, who runs the $11 billion Legg Mason Value Trust mutual fund, recalled saying. The founding fathers, he said, thought that any issue that could gather the support of three-quarters of the states was good enough to be in the Constitution; shareholders should have the same power over the company they own. "What's good for America," Mr. Miller said, "is good for corporate America."
nytimes.com |
