Sway of RIM critic doubtful:
Looks like Victor Alboini, chair and chief executive of Jaguar Financial who wants Research In Motion's leadership replaced stands alone.
http://www.therecord.com/news/business/article/622794--sway-of-rim-critic-doubtful
TORONTO * With its stock down about 65 per cent this year, Research In Motion has no shortage of unhappy shareholders.
But few of its investors have sought and received as much attention over the past few months as Victor P. Alboini, the chair and chief executive of Toronto-based Jaguar Financial.
In several interviews since June, Alboini has called for the replacement of RIM’s co-chief executives, demanded the appointment of an independent chair and urged the company’s board to consider selling the Waterloo-based maker of the BlackBerry or breaking it into three units.
While many analysts have been critical of RIM, no other investor has made as public a clamour against the company as Jaguar.
But a closer look at Jaguar Financial raises questions about whether it really has clout over RIM’s strategies.
Alboini, characterized in media reports as an activist investor, and his company are not major forces in Toronto’s financial community, as he acknowledges. Even after its steep decline this year, RIM has a market capitalization thousands of times larger than Northern Financial, the holding company through which Alboini controls Jaguar.
Doubts about Jaguar’s influence are not helped by Alboini’s decision not to disclose the size of his stake in RIM or identify the 13 other investors who he says back his crusade and collectively hold 10 per cent of RIM.
But a perhaps larger issue is the track record of his own companies. This year, Northern Financial’s share price dipped so low that it was forced to sell about $3 million in stock to avoid being delisted from the Toronto Stock Exchange.
Then, last month, the Canadian regulator of securities dealers said it would hold a hearing into accusations that Alboini and other executives of Northern Securities, the brokerage firm owned by Northern Financial, had violated several rules when executing trades on behalf of Jaguar.
And while separating the positions of chief executive and chair is at the top of his to-do list for RIM, Alboini performs the dual role at Northern Financial, Jaguar and a small Canadian pipe maker, Lakeside Steel.
Alboini, a former securities lawyer and author of a widely used Canadian textbook on security laws, said his dual roles were a matter of circumstances.
Saying his three companies are small, “my only pitch would be that the higher you move up the food chain, more independence between the chair and CEO is required. I justify the difference on that basis.”
Alboini has not raised these concerns directly with RIM’s management, and last month John E. Richardson, the company’s lead director, withdrew an agreement to meet with him.
“Mr. Richardson does not believe that Jaguar’s interests are aligned with RIM’s long-term shareholders,” said Tenille Kennedy, a spokesperson for RIM.
