The Canadian feud mirrors the one seen in HBO’s Succession.
Succession is an American television series about the Roy family, the dysfunctional owners of Waystar RoyCo, a global media entertainment conglomerate. Siblings Kendall, Roman, and Shiv all fight for control of the company as the health of the family’s patriarch, Logan Roy, falls into decline.
In Season One, Logan’s son Kendall believes he is the company heir following his father’s retirement, but Logan shocks his family by announcing that he will not be stepping down as CEO. Thereafter, Kendall plots to hold a vote of no confidence against his father amidst his erratic behavior. Logan catches wind of Kendall’s plan and refuses to leave the room during the vote. Instead, he berates several board members, including his son Roman, to side with him, and fires everyone who voted against him, including Kendall. In the most recent season, which aired on 17 October 2021, Kendall’s desire to oust his father from the company has once again been reignited. He allegedly possesses “papers” that offer hard evidence of his father’s involvement and complicity in human rights atrocities. If siblings Roman and Shiv can be persuaded to join Kendall in a united front against their father, the plausible outcome is that their father will be forced to step down. Will the siblings band together? You’ll have to watch Season Three to find out.
Succession seems to have been eerily prophetic of Canada’s latest corporate drama. The Rogers family controls a twenty-eight billion dollar media conglomerate, Rogers Communications Inc., through a trust that holds ninety-seven per cent of the voting shares in the TSX-listed company. The drama involves an internal power struggle for the title of Chief Executive Officer (“CEO”) at Rogers amongst corporate officers and directors, some of whom are members of the Rogers family including Edward, his sisters Martha and Melinda, and his mother Loretta.
Tony Staffieri and Joe Natale were the CFO and CEO of Rogers, respectively. Edward Rogers, the (now former) Chairman of the Rogers Board and heir to the company, wanted to replace Natale as CEO with Staffieri, as he felt that the company was not performing as well as it could financially. Specifically, Rogers shares were lagging behind those of competitors Bell and Telus, and the gap between them was widening. Natale learned of the plan to remove him through an accidental “butt dial” from Staffieri and sought to replace Staffieri as CFO. Edward Rogers caught wind of Natale’s plan and called an emergency board meeting on 26 September 2021, to try and oust Natale instead. During the board meeting, Melinda (Deputy Chair and Edward’s sister) and Loretta (Edward’s mother) strongly opposed Edward’s plan. The majority of the Board and Rogers family sided with Natale, and Staffieri stepped down as CFO three days later. On 21 October 2021, Rogers Communications Inc. removed Edward Rogers from the Board after his plan to unilaterally remove the majority of the company’s independent directors and replace them with his own nominees was revealed. Edward had successfully fired five Board members and replaced them with his own loyalists, which the company claims was an invalid exercise of his powers. Stay tuned, as there will surely be a legal battle over who in the family has the authority to fire whom, especially given that Edward controls the Rogers Control Trust.
Such a power struggle is especially troublesome for Rogers as it is occurring whilst the company is trying to close a twenty-six billion dollar deal to acquire Shaw Communications Inc. The importance of that deal was a major impetus for Edward’s push for new leadership. Moreover, to make things worse, Rogers shares have lost about seven per cent of their value in the past week as the messy fight has gone public. Notice the irony in all of this: Edward’s plan to improve the company’s financial performance has effectively generated the opposite result. Will Rogers be able to successfully complete the Shaw transaction?