The Sorkin Roadmap for Fairness

Andrew Ross Sorkin ofNY Times Dealbookhas developed some middle ground between Ben Steins call for banning management buyouts and the private equity markets calls for continued regulatory indifference. Specifically, he has a four-part plan for fixing certain problems inherent in management buyouts. It goes like this:

1.Require that a majority of minority shareholders approve the transaction. If senior management holds a control position, dont let its vote be the only one that matters.

2.Use independent advisors. Real ones without either existing company relationships or a financial stake in the deal (i.e., stapled financing agreements).

3.Set aside up to 10% of the newly-private company for public shareholders. In other words, pre-empt the whining.

4.Provide some detail of the business plan for the company, once it becomes private. Let shareholders decide if management can best add value as a public or private entity.

Points one and two seem like no-brainers. Both help prevent self-dealing without much downside. If its really a good deal, then the minority shareholders will vote for it. Sure certain Wall Street firms will lose some fees, but not in the aggregate. It might even promote the creation of new boutique I-banks.

Points three and four are a bit trickier (as Sorkin admits).

My concern on point three isnt so much the mechanics of it, difficult though they may be to design. Instead, its an issue of consistency. Assuming the point one becomes a generally-accepted principle, would a majority of this new 10% class have the right to veto a subsequent sale? If not, why not? Maybe the answer is that public and private shareholders are granted different levels of privilege, but then the same could be argued of controlling and non-controlling shareholders. It seems that you must either accept point one and deny three, or accept them both with a giant addendum to number three.

I have been arguing for a while that there is an inherent unfairness that public shareholders vote on acquisitions without knowing what the future possibilities are. I also think that the only viable solution is to demand more of the banks charged with writing fairness opinions (Id also ask more of corporate boards, but its futile to request objectivity of cronies). If a company gives away its future gameplan particularly when adoption of said plan is not yet approved it almost certainly puts the company at a competitive disadvantage. Again, put some bite in the currently-toothless fairness opinions.

Finally, lets add a fifth point (as first suggested by DealBook reader Andy Johnston): Make public all auctions of public companies. Once a corporate board is actively willing to consider buyout bids, retain a banker and issue what would amount to a buyout RFP (request for proposal). Give everyone one month to submit bids which is a tight enough timeframe to still reward those private equity firms that helped initiate the deal.

Some M&A bankers may object to this proposal, saying that their selective bluebook mailing lists are designed to discourage frivolous bids. I say that Id rather suffer through a handful of frivolous bids, rather than arbitrarily restrict the process in a may that may depress/prevent legitimate bids.

It also is worth noting, of course, that all of the above would require federal regulatory action. So be it. Even free markets require some ground rules.