Hedge Fund to save Kicks from themselves

from the WSJ:

Harbinger Capital Management, an activist hedge fund with a history of shaking up the management of companies in which it invests, has accumulated a 4.9% stake in Cablevision Systems Corp., according to regulatory filings. The move may help explain the sudden about-face by Cablevision Chief Executive James Dolan, who recently surprised investors by announcing the company will explore options to boost its stock price.

Long criticized for not being receptive to shareholder interests, Cablevision's top executives this week met with large investors for the first time in years

Damn shame......poor management on all fronts.

I had posted a while back that the only way Dolan was going to clean up his act was for cablevision investors to speak up.

I think its fairly easy as an investor to point at the way the Knicks have been mismanaged during Dolan's tenure and say if you, Mr Dolan, can't run the knicks well, you're probably doing a poor job elsewhere.

But, the Dolans are fairly resourceful, and any spin off of the Knicks & MSG would probably still leave Dolan in charge.

Posted by anrst:

by selling the knicks and using proceeds to pay down debt, cablevision's stock will rise, plain and simple. hedge funds getting involved must know this.

They won't do that- they will spin it off, and give stock to existing shareholders- and it will be structured to be preferential to Dolan and give him class B voting stock.

Its probably better to have vocal shareholders who take an active and aggressive role to move dolan to manage the knicks and other franchises better. Too bad this hadn't started a year earlier- we probably wouldn't have traded for zach.

Dolan will never stop torturing us. That fat fool gets pleasure from having the power to manipulate the fans' emotions.