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I don’t understand how any board can implement a “poison pill”, not just Twitter but Netflix and others, and not be found working against the interest of shareh
by nickysielicki 5y ago
I don’t understand how any board can implement a “poison pill”, not just Twitter but Netflix and others, and not be found working against the interest of shareholders. Can anyone help me understand?
You’re categorically changing the profile of the stock. This has a chilling effect on large investors, including but not limited just to Musk, right?
Vanguard, for example, has just had its range of further investment limited arbitrarily. Isn’t that bad for all stockholders, to know that large stakeholders will not drive the price up if they somehow gain substantial belief in the company?
The risk portfolio of Vanguard just went up considerably because in the case that they fully lose faith in the board, they no longer have the option of installing a friendly board, they must simply liquidate their holdings. This, in turn, makes them more skeptical of further smaller (non-takeover) investment because it’s more to liquidate and more risk.
Who does this benefit besides the board? I guess I understand that the board is not beholden to the interests of all shareholders equally, and I’m not suggesting that this doesn’t benefit some shareholders, but where does the line start?
- themitigating 5y agoYou're claiming that Musk's purchase of twitter is objectively good for shareholders
- nickysielicki 5y agoGiven that it’s at a share price premium for 90%+ of the lifetime of the stock since IPO, yes. Most shares were bought below the price Musk is asking.
- gobengo 5y agoit's radical to equate dollar values with objective goodness
- iancmceachern 5y agoExactly. Profit does not always equal good. One of my favorite books: "Small giants, companies that choose to be great instead of big"
- tsimionescu 5y agoFiduciary duty, such as it is, only extends to dollar value; and there is no other criteria to sue the board over. Note that I'm all for companies having much more legal responsibility to other stakeholders, not just shareholders, but that is somewhat irrelevant for a discussion of whether the board could be successfully sued over adopting this decision.
- dasil003 5y agoTrue, but the GP's phrasing of "equate dollar values" implies a sort of cut and dried interpretation. A mechanical calculation of a short-term price snapshot is not the only thing that matters. If the board has good reason to believe that Musk will be bad for the stock price in the long-term then there wouldn't be any breach of fiduciary duty.
- tsimionescu 5y agoThat's not exactly true, as Musk's offer is to buy the company outright, making it private (and thus buying out all shareholders), as I understand - so there is no concept of how Musk's ownership would affect the stock price. Still, the board can easily argue "we believe shareholders will be able to achieve higher profits in the future by maintaining their ownership than by selling all stock at Musk's offered price today".
- bradleybuda 5y agoHe claims that he wants to “retain as many shareholders as is allowed by the law” [0] which is just as fictional as it was when he pretended to try to take Telsa private. [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-04-15/sure-elon-musk-might-buy-twitter https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-04-15/sure-e...
- dEnigma 5y agoIt's not that radical to equate dollar values with "good for stockholders". At least in my impression that is what most stock holders care about.
- jungturk 5y agoThere's an entire sector of funds that include criteria around environmental, social, and governance impacts in addition to returns on investment. https://www.investor.gov/introduction-investing/general-resources/news-alerts/alerts-bulletins/investor-bulletins-1 https://www.investor.gov/introduction-investing/general-reso...
- philistine 5y agoThe board has declared the price offered to be too low. You say it's high enough, but I doubt you own as much stock as the people on the board.
- nickysielicki 5y agoTo be clear, they haven’t actually rejected the offer yet, they’ve simply limited the ability of Musk to acquire a majority stake in the case that they reject.
- jayd16 5y agoIf you think the stock could grow further without Musk then the board would be protecting your interests.
- ryoshu 5y agoIf North Korea offered $60 billion to buy Twitter would Twitter be forced to sell? Not comparing Musk to NK, but money isn't the only consideration when an offer to sell comes in.
- loceng 5y agoIndeed, what happens when Elon starts his own platform instead and uses some of the ~$40 billion he'd otherwise buy Twitter with instead on paying top users of Twitter to exclusively use his platform instead?
- metadat 5y agoI'd ditch twtr in a heartbeat, at this point it's a cesspool in every sense.
- dev_tty01 5y agoThere are already alternatives to Twitter. Why haven't you ditched it already?
- metadat 5y agoI'm aware, and do you realize nobody of note is using the alternatives? Why would you recommend someone invest time building a presence in yet another loser platform with bleak future prospects? Doesn't seem helpful or all that bright. For a real alternative to succeed, solid backers focused on dethroning tw are needed to inspire confidence and stability, then we all need to jump at about the same time to get the momentum going and bounce out of the twatterverse. As it stands now, there is no real competition.
- tsimionescu 5y ago> I'm aware, and do you realize nobody of note is using the alternatives? That's exactly the point - there is no reason to believe this would change if Musk created his own social network.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- paxys 5y agoNot everyone buys a stock for a quick short-term turnaround. If I expect Twitter to 20x in the next 5 years why would I want to sell my share to Elon? And existing investors all have the option to cash out today for just 17% less than Musk's final offer.
- aetherson 5y agoIf you expect Twitter to 20x in the next 5 years, then a: You're dreaming. b: You're absolutely expecting a quick short-term gain.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago> b: You're absolutely expecting a quick short-term gain To put this in perspective, 20x in 5 years is an 82% CAGR. And five years is far short of the length of an economic cycle. Traditionally, "long term investing" meant across at least one whole business cycle.
- EdiX 5y agoTwitter has operated for 16 years and public for about 10, explosive growth of their userbase is in their past and monetization strategies have already been implemented for years. There is no reason to believe it has the potential for such growth.
- paxys 5y agoThen why were they holding the stock the day before Musk got involved?
- mechanical_bear 5y agoThey feel there is potential for growth, just not flights of fancy like you describe.
- IMTDb 5y ago> If I expect Twitter to 20x in the next 5 years why would I want to sell my share to Elon? Vote with your dollars: buy shares at a price higher than Elon's. Borrow if you must. If you are not ready to take that risk, then maybe your expectations are more wishful thinking than anything real.
- dev_tty01 5y agoToday's price and the 'expected' future price is all that matters. The 90% lifetime price history is not relevant. All transactions of this nature are based on future value. The offer is only an 18% premium at a time when many tech stocks are being hammered due to extrinsic reasons. It is not a serious offer.
- drstewart 5y agoI take it you're highly invested in Twitter stock given how confident you are it's going to go up by more than 20%?
- aleister_777 5y agoIt closed $.18 above initial offer price in 2013.
- quickthrowman 5y agoThe share price tells you nothing by itself—you also need to know the amount of shares outstanding at both points in time to make an actual comparison.
- _v7gu 5y agoToday's price is the expected future price. If you disagree, go buy the stock and make some money.
- tsimionescu 5y agoThat is irrelevant. To show a breach of fiduciary duty with this kind of argument, you would basically have to prove that it is objectively impossible for Twitter stock to be worth more than what Musk offered over some horizon. I very much doubt there has ever been a successful case taking this approach.
- oh_sigh 5y agoGetting paid a 25% premium for my stock sounds pretty good to me.
- themitigating 5y agoWhat if the stock goes higher in the future?
- 14 5y agoWhat if the stock crashes in the future? Having a guarantee profit sounds like a pretty good deal for some.
- justapassenger 5y agoGuaranteed profit at the point in time is great for speculators. If you're doing long term investment, realizing profit at random point in time, isn't really that attractive.
- elcomet 5y agoWhat ? Even if you're a long time investor, having an instant 25% guaranteed profit is good as you can sell part of the stock and diversify.
- justapassenger 5y agoIf you follow that logic, each time stock goes after good earnings, everyone should just sell off everything.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- nostrebored 5y agoThey should, provided transaction fees and gains taxes don’t exceed their estimation of the difference in value times the number of stocks adjusted for the time value of money. People with more complicated positions should consider covariance and factor in uncertainty. But if you’re a shareholder in a single stock and estimate that it’s overvalued by a significant margin, the rational choice is to sell your position, invest in a low risk, highly liquid asset, and rebuy.
- TsomArp 5y agoAnd why wouldn't be? He is offering a premium from the current valuation. You either accept it or reject it if you think the premium is low, or am I wrong?
- teeray 5y agoThe board’s mandate is to maximize shareholder value. They have an offer that will objectively maximize that value. To scorn it in favor of intangibles is to act against the interest of shareholders.
- philistine 5y agoAccording to your logic, any offer to go private above market value must be accepted. That's not the case. Stockholders might be interested in owning Twitter stock for a long time. Elon's offer might not make financial sense for them.
- avs733 5y agoThe boards mandate is one of fiduciary duty. Bluntly, that is not a mandate to maximize shareholder value, especially in the short term. They do not have an offer that will maximize shareholder value - they have an offer that will increase it. Words have meaning and concepts have definitions. They are not arbitrary of flexible for the sake of making the argument you want. The BOD's responsibility is to the company, a public company's responsibility is to the shareholders - this difference matters. Cornell's legal information institute provides a nice and cited set of definitions (albeit in legalese) - https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/fiduciary_duty https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/fiduciary_duty
- LocalPCGuy 5y agoNo, a board is mandated to act in the best interests of the shareholders. That might be different than just maximizing the share price. They may believe this is a bad idea for the company as a whole, and that long term, it's objectively better for the company to not be owned by Musk.
- compsciphd 5y agoisn't musks offer to buy out all the shareholders. i.e. lets take a crazy example. you have a company that is worth $1mil and we only imagine that it can be worth $100mil (based on the size of the market we are addressing). someone comes and offers $200mil but we know he will shut the company down (i.e. liquidate all its assets, or even simply the desire to destroy the company). While this might be sad for the company, why is it not in the interests of the shareholders to take the offer? so if Musk is willing to offer more than shareholders expect to see in the forseable future, why does it matter what will happen to the company after that? their interest in the company ends when their shares are purchased.
- SkyMarshal 5y ago> and not be found working against the interest of shareholders. It depends on what the interests of the shareholders actually is. Monetary only, or are there other considerations they care about? I assume the boards of such companies have had private discussions with the majority shareholders to find out exactly what their priorities are, and then acted accordingly.
- RosanaAnaDana 5y ago>It depends on what the interests of the shareholders actually is. Monetary only, or are there other considerations they care about? Is a board allowed to consider anything but?
- namdnay 5y agoOf course they are, major investors regularly push boards to do more ESG for example
- riccardomc 5y agoYes. The law doesn't bind directors to maximize shareholders value. https://www.reddit.com/r/law/comments/3pv8bh/comment/cw9t52d/ https://www.reddit.com/r/law/comments/3pv8bh/comment/cw9t52d...
- ameister14 5y agoI could be wrong but I don't think Twitter is a B corp.
- riccardomc 5y agoTwitter is not a B-Corp indeed. However any company, not just B-Corps, can have a purpose other than shareholders value maximization. Check this article: https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12660 https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12660 There's an easily searchable index of B-Corps: https://www.bcorporation.net/en-us/find-a-b-corp https://www.bcorporation.net/en-us/find-a-b-corp
- philistine 5y agoElon's offer is at the same time an hostile offer, and conditional on obtaining financing from banks. This is never heard of in the history of hostile acquisitions, and is a BIG risk for the board to entertain any attempt by anyone to buy Twitter before they know what their loan percentages are.
- avs733 5y agoIt would be simple for them to say 'this is not a serious offer' no matter the premium that is a good faith way of rejecting it. I could offer them $150 a share tomorrow, contingent on financing and would get laughed out of the room.
- aleister_777 5y agoYou're not the richest man in the world. It works different if you happen to be though.
- avs733 5y agoOf course it does, but we also have no idea what happened behind the scenes and the board does. He turned down joining the board last week basically because he could act like a troll if he did (I’m being facetious). Calling musk the richest man in the world is also kind of silly because he’s not offering to stock swap for Tesla shares…he has a lot of theoretical wealth, which as with many factors would play in the boards decision about whether this is serious. My point is that the number on the offer is not an objective and singular measure of whether this is a good deal for Twitter. Who is making the offer clearly matters as well to how serious it is.
- mdoms 5y agoElon's offer is not a hostile takeover, it is just that - an offer.
- rufus_foreman 5y agoElon's offer is not a hostile offer. He has made an offer, management has not yet rejected it. It is just an offer to purchase the company, as of now. If the offer is rejected and Elon continues to attempt to gain control of the company, that would be an attempt at a hostile takeover.
- AlbertCory 5y agoYou can read "Barbarians at the Gate" for some 1980s history of corporate raiding. Back then, it was pure greed and ego. So unlike today [smile emoji]. The "poison pill" defense is very old. I'm not going to defend or attack it; it is what it is. I WILL observe that, once a stock is "in play" it usually gets acquired, or at least gets a bunch of new board members.
- akvadrako 5y agoI'm pretty sure a majority of shares of Twitter care about making the most money ahead of everything else. But just offering a 50% premium might not be enough. They'll need to pay taxes on the realized gains and they'll need to find other places to put their money.
- alasdair_ 5y ago>They'll need to pay taxes on the realized gains The bulk of the holders of stock in most public companies are institutional investors that don't need to pay taxes on the realized gains.
- akvadrako 5y agoWhy don't they pay taxes on realized gains?
- ceejayoz 5y agoBecause they're largely managing tax-advantaged accounts.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- s1artibartfast 5y agoBecause they are taxed on annual profit, not capital gains. If they sell a stock and buy a different one, there is no profit. The private analogy is a professional gambler. You don't pay taxes for winnings on each bet. You pay taxes on what you have cashed out at the end of the year. Tax on individual sales is only a thing for individuals.
- edgyquant 5y ago> institutional investors [] don't need to pay taxes on [] gains. Elaborate
- SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
- recuter 5y agoI don’t understand how any board can implement a “poison pill”, not just Twitter but Netflix and others, and not be found working against the interest of shareholders. Can anyone help me understand? You’re categorically changing the profile of the stock. This has a chilling effect on large investors, including but not limited just to Musk, right? Correct. Hence the term poison pill. Now nobody else will be interested in buying them either and Elon selling out will tank the stock. As a reminder their stock steadily dropped all the way to $14 after the initial IPO pop and they've been losing money since before Covid. Woke means broke I guess. I think his plan B will be to start a competitor. I'm very tempted to heavily short as soon as he walks away definitively. As to your question of, won't the other shareholders get mad at the board and potentially sue them - I think the board is drinking their own koolaid.
- quest88 5y agoHe can buy one of those other competitors used by right-wing folks. Hell, if "free speech" is so important to him and to everyone else he wants to rescue he can just tweet to use those other platforms. It's certainly cheaper.
- recuter 5y agoTwitter is "losing hundreds of millions of dollars every year" (I don't know if that's how we're using air quotes now, just following your lead), it is already circling the drain. No need to buy anything, it would be trivial for him to setup a clone and fund it indefinitely while it tears itself apart.
- threeseed 5y agoRevenue grew 37% since last year. And they were profitable when you exclude their once off litigation expense. Not sure about your definition of circling the drain but Twitter definitely isn't.
- Hamuko 5y agoSpoiler alert: other platforms are not in any way more "free speech". Gab for example bans porn, which is both free speech protected by the First Amendment, and allowed on Twitter. TRUTH Social seems to forbid a lot of things, such as depictions of violence, lewd content, libelous/slanderous content and lying (true to their name, I guess?).
- newaccount2021 5y ago
- mise_en_place 5y agoThey're doing it on purpose so people will sell off TWTR, then they will secretly buy and approve the acquisition offer. It's a blatant insider trading scheme.
- ameister14 5y ago>I don’t understand how any board can implement a “poison pill”, not just Twitter but Netflix and others, and not be found working against the interest of shareholders. Can anyone help me understand? So let's say you put in a shareholder rights plan that allows all current shareholders to buy 10 new, discounted shares whenever a new shareholder reaches 20% ownership and for every share they buy from then on. That effectively dilutes that one owner without anyone else, and if they continue to buy it makes all the other shareholders much more money. That's not always legal, but it would help the interests of shareholders.
- IMTDb 5y ago> That's not always legal, but it would help the interests of shareholders. Except the guy at 19.9% trying to move up. Considering he has already invested quite a lot of money on the company, shouldn't the board also work for him ? Why should he be treated differently and his share give him different "rights" than others people share ?
- blackoil 5y agoMore likely he'll withdraw offer and sell his stake, causing share price to drop and all shareholders losing real and potential gain.
- ameister14 5y agoThe poison pill was mostly developed at a time when the alternative was him selling all the company assets and leveraging the company to load it with as much debt as possible then give out as large a dividend as he could before selling off the stock leaving the company insolvent and everyone out of work. So imagine a company taking $100 million in debt, giving all that out as a dividend then the stock price tanking through quick sales. Poison pill keeps the company going and avoids that fate.
- hedora 5y agoWait, if some ETF accidentally exceeds 15%, then what? First of all, that'll screw over a bunch of small investors, right? Second, could Elon swoop in at that point? Edit: Also, if Elon is reading this, I'll happily buy 14.9% of twitter, and vote as part of your block. Just pay me enough to cover the sale and taxes, plus 1%.
- friesfreeze 5y agoPoison pills often have exemptions for passive investors such as ETFs.
- anonu 5y agoDon't think that's true. ETF fund managers, when faced with a corporate action decision, will always vote for whatever maximizes their shareholders value.
- friesfreeze 5y agoCourts have upheld poison pills that treat 13D and 13G filers differently. I'd wager most ETFs that hold 5% of major public companies are 13G filers. Vanguard files a 13G for twitter. To be fair idk what the twitter pill will do - maybe it will be more aggressive.
- rosndo 5y agoAn ETF isn’t going to “accidentally” exceed 15% ownership of Twitter. Seriously, do you think funds playing with the kind of money to buy 15% of twitter often make careless purchases? >Edit: Also, if Elon is reading this, I'll happily buy 14.9% of twitter, and vote as part of your block. Just pay me enough to cover the sale and taxes, plus 1%. Such an arrangement would make Elon the beneficial owner of your shares.
- kolbe 5y agoBarclay's literally forgot to register with the SEC to be allowed to issue securities, then issued $15bn of them over the course of years, and lost $600m as a result. If you think "funds with this kind of money" are any better than a pack of chimps, then you should direct that "seriously" back at yourself. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-03-28/barclays-sold-too-many-notes https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-03-28/barcla...
- tonguez 5y ago"Who does this benefit besides the board?" the people who run the US/world who depend on censorship to maintain their power
- MrMan 5y ago"they" if there is such a they, depend far more on social media hypnotizing us and controlling what we perceive and believe. its not the absence of free speech that is the problem, its that truth about our situation cannot make a dent in our psyches while we are hypnotized with a firehose of propaganda and marketing.
- gigatexal 5y ago52 week high was 70 something. His offer is too low anyway. And he said it was his final offer. He’s just an egomaniacal billionaire who is bored.
- Majromax 5y ago> You’re categorically changing the profile of the stock. Mechanically, it's not much different than an issue of new shares. From Twitter's announcement: >> each right will entitle its holder [...] to purchase, at the then-current exercise price, additional shares of common stock having a then-current market value of twice the exercise price of the right. There's no obvious breach of fiduciary duty through this plan. Existing (non-Musk) investors get new shares, but Twitter also raises capital at the current market price.
- moomin 5y agoI think the answer is that "the interests of shareholders" can be interpreted in a much broader fashion than some people, including board members, like to pretend.
- woodruffw 5y agoIf I was a member of Twitter's board, Musk's history of erratic public behavior, SEC settlement, and openly hostile attitude towards the company's employees would be more than sufficient to justify my belief that his controlling ownership would not be in the interest of the current average shareholder. That opinion would also be consistent with how "fiduciary duty" is interpreted by US regulators: companies are not required to perform any particular action that might reasonably be in the interests of shareholders; they must merely show that the company's actions were intended to be in the best interests of the shareholders.
- aleister_777 5y agoHowever, I think it's a harder case to argue when twitter stock closed at $.18 above the price they went public at in 2013. Sounds like whatever it is they have been doing hasn't been in the interest of the average shareholder either. The stock is toast regardless after this.
- Ericson2314 5y agoThe fate of the company after it has been taken private doesn't matter as far as "fiduciary duty" is concerned.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago> fate of the company after it has been taken private doesn't matter as far as "fiduciary duty" is concerned If it goes private. As always, Matt Levine says it better than I can: "...the financing seems to be made up of cobwebs and phlogiston. But also Musk has joked about taking companies private before, and he generally changes his mind a lot. (He agreed to join Twitter’s board last week! And then changed his mind four days later!) If you are a well-advised professional public company board, it is just catastrophic to imagine that you might say 'okay Elon $54.20 it is' and then he’d say 'ha no I was kidding, psych!' That would be crippling for a public company. Also that is basically what he did to Twitter’s board last weekend!" https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-04-15/sure-elon-musk-might-buy-twitter https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-04-15/sure-e...
- jonas21 5y agoAs a Netflix shareholder at the time they adopted their poison pill, I feel like the subsequent ~40x increase in share price has been very much in my interest. :-) Of course hindsight is 20/20, but even at the time, it seemed like the company was prioritizing long-term growth, whereas if they were taken over by Carl Icahn, they'd certainly not be.
- oldmandutch 5y agoNetflix had a product to sell, not just a crowd.
- dahdum 5y agoTwitter definitely isn’t Netflix. It’s been a dog since IPO, languished under a part time disinterested CEO, and only peaked because of the pandemic meme stock era. As an individual and index shareholder I’d love for Musk to take it away at a premium, I have zero faith management will do anything positive.
- hadlock 5y agoStrong agree, Twitter hasn't grown their user base more than 10% since 2015, they might be making more revenue per user but annual revenue is likely ready to plateau if it hasn't already. Getting a premium on your stock is a good option if you can get it and a natural outcome of investing.
- roguecoder 5y agoIt isn't just the shareholders they have a fiduciary duty to: they also have the duty of care, the duty of loyalty, and the duty of good faith. Selling to an adderall-addled toddler just because he happens to have accumulated more money than any person should have could be argued to violate all three.
- riazrizvi 5y agoThe fiduciary duty of the board is to protect the company as an ongoing concern that seeks to increase its enterprise value, and also to protect the interests of shareholders, including minority shareholders. This is to prevent say a majority shareholder and/or group of employees from raiding the business of its value. So a case for a poison pill might be well made to prevent a person from taking a controlling stake to then expose the company’s IP (code base) because they have some agenda, or prevent them running the company into the ground by causing a flight of talent, or by breaking some success formula.
- dan-robertson 5y agoIsn’t it still possible for Musk to make a tender offer which then would have to go to a shareholder vote, or for the board to accept (or put to shareholder vote) the offer he did make? The point of the poison pill is that it prevents a certain type of hostile takeover and you may have reasonable opinions about whether or not such clauses are good/should be allowed, but I don’t think they stop takeovers in general, right?
- BoiledCabbage 5y ago> The risk portfolio of Vanguard just went up considerably because in the case that they fully lose faith in the board, they no longer have the option of installing a friendly board, they must simply liquidate their holdings. This, in turn, makes them more skeptical of further smaller (non-takeover) investment because it’s more to liquidate and more risk. It sounds like your interpretation Vanguard's risk profile / likelihood and their interpretation differ. And given that I trust Vanguard's assessment. Frankly, if I were an institutional investor, I'd probably prefer the poison pill than have Twitter become a toy subject to Elon Musk's random political fight. Wasn't he all in on Doge coin, except he wasn't, and all in on bitcoin but then not fully, then some other random alt coin, oh and then he's back in on Doge again and how to improve it. It sounds like sound fiduciary duty to not let your company be subject to those whims.
- ineedasername 5y agoShareholders would benefit from the poison pill because they could buy stock at a nice discount. Or they could benefit because they believe the new owners would be bad for the business.
- HWR_14 5y ago> Vanguard, for example, has just had its range of further investment limited arbitrarily. As I understand vanguards structure, they have no beneficial ownership of any company and therefore never trigger the poison pill. > Who does this benefit besides the board? This benefits anyone who is concerned that a rich person will buy 50%+1 of a company and use their equity to make decisions they are opposed to. Now if a rich person accumulate 20%, the other shareholders can dilute that rich person. That means the rich person has to convince other shareholders that decision is correct.
- Hermel 5y agoIn most other countries, such a poison pill would be illegal as it violates the principle of equal treatment of all shareholders. Also, in most other countries, the decision to issue new shares requires a shareholder vote and cannot be done by the board alone.
- dm319 5y agoThis forum is obsessed with stock. Some things are bigger than the financial 'value' of a company.