Charter Communications has picked a motley crew to replace Time Warner Cable board members in preparation for a proxy battle for the New York headquartered cable company.
Among them are:
- Lisa Gersh, former Martha Stewart president
- Irwin Simon, Hain Celestial Group founder
- David Peacock, former president of Anheuser-Busch
Those with related industry experience include:
- James Chiddix, a retired CEO of Open TV
- Bruno J. Claude a non-executive director at Ireland’s telecom company, Eircom
- Eamonn O’Hare, chief financial officer of Virgin Media, a British pay-TV firm
- Marwan Fawaz, a former executive vice president at Motorola Mobility
- Dexter Goei, a fomer CEO of European cable company, Altice
Others with a financial background include:
- Franklin Hobbs who has served as an advisor to One Equity Partners
- Neil Morganbesser, CEO of DelMorgan & Co
- Michael Salvati, a former president of Oakridge Consulting
- John Welch III, a former president of Avalon Capital Partners
- Isaac Corre, a visting scholar at Harvard was also nominated
Time Warner Cable responded to the 13-person slate in a statement saying: “It is clear that Charter is nominating a slate of directors for the sole purpose of pressuring our Board into accepting the same lowball offer that it previously considered and unanimously rejected.”
Time Warner Cable has brought on board a slew of big guns to help defend against a take-over by Liberty Media-backed Charter Communications. Morgan Stanley, Allen & Co., Citigroup and Centerview are working for Time Warner Cable.
Charter’s offer for $132.50 per share has been rejected by Time Warner Cable which has said it wants $160 per share.