Ramblings; every two weeks, roughly will post some notes of interest; hopefully. These are not the latest news events just some interesting notes.
1. BCE chairman Richard Currie bought $25.9 million worth of shares of BCE. 250,000 at $26.167 and 750,000 at $25.764. This puts his direct and indirect holdings at just over 1,030,000 shares. nice to see when management goes out and buys the stock on the open market. Richard Currie served as president of Loblaws from 1976-2000. Shareholders of Loblaws and George Weston have seen their investment do extremely well, thanks in part to his management. Loblaws is a large grocery chain in Canada.
BCE has a safe dividend, and should be viewed as a utility. Would rate it a hold, short term. However with a yield over 4% could see the stock giving a return of 10% going forward. Not bad in these markets.
(note: own BCE, Telus Bonds, and SBC, only holdings in Telecom)
2. GE Executive Pay
Calpers (California Public Employees Retirement System) and Amalgamated Bank are going to sponser a resolution urging that executive pay (stock options/salary) be tied company performance.
For instance Jack Welch received 80% increase in compensation in his final year despite a drop in the companies market value. Pensions funds and mutual funds like Calpers have to take a more active role on fighting these large wage packets. Recently there has been cases where management has tried to grant themselves large amount of options, sometimes diluting the shareholders by 20%. Pension and mutual funds have to stand up for their unit holders.
by the way this is not new, at GE. This has been going on for years. Even before the bull market of the 1990s.
" It didn't make a hell of a lot of difference if the guy had just screwed up or invented LEXAN (a lucrative General Electric plastic). It was just unreal. You'd take the size of the guy's shirt collar and divide it by the Gregorian Calendar and mulitply it by the square root of pi, and you'd come out with a number that was totally meaningless."
Walter Wriston, former CEO of Citibank and director of GE, on how GE once (and probably still does) determine pay packages for top executives.
note : great quote; I own some GE had covered calls expire this month, and wrote new ones yesterday. lowers my cost, and if I lose the stock make a good profit. GE will follow the markets.
I realize my mistake of getting involved in GE when Cramer banged his fist on the table (on CNBC) and stated Tyco and GE are both good quality companies and stocks. That is when I knew a mistake was made on my part. Cramer for the record now bashes Tyco but still likes GE.
thanks
selkirk
1. BCE chairman Richard Currie bought $25.9 million worth of shares of BCE. 250,000 at $26.167 and 750,000 at $25.764. This puts his direct and indirect holdings at just over 1,030,000 shares. nice to see when management goes out and buys the stock on the open market. Richard Currie served as president of Loblaws from 1976-2000. Shareholders of Loblaws and George Weston have seen their investment do extremely well, thanks in part to his management. Loblaws is a large grocery chain in Canada.
BCE has a safe dividend, and should be viewed as a utility. Would rate it a hold, short term. However with a yield over 4% could see the stock giving a return of 10% going forward. Not bad in these markets.
(note: own BCE, Telus Bonds, and SBC, only holdings in Telecom)
2. GE Executive Pay
Calpers (California Public Employees Retirement System) and Amalgamated Bank are going to sponser a resolution urging that executive pay (stock options/salary) be tied company performance.
For instance Jack Welch received 80% increase in compensation in his final year despite a drop in the companies market value. Pensions funds and mutual funds like Calpers have to take a more active role on fighting these large wage packets. Recently there has been cases where management has tried to grant themselves large amount of options, sometimes diluting the shareholders by 20%. Pension and mutual funds have to stand up for their unit holders.
by the way this is not new, at GE. This has been going on for years. Even before the bull market of the 1990s.
" It didn't make a hell of a lot of difference if the guy had just screwed up or invented LEXAN (a lucrative General Electric plastic). It was just unreal. You'd take the size of the guy's shirt collar and divide it by the Gregorian Calendar and mulitply it by the square root of pi, and you'd come out with a number that was totally meaningless."
Walter Wriston, former CEO of Citibank and director of GE, on how GE once (and probably still does) determine pay packages for top executives.
note : great quote; I own some GE had covered calls expire this month, and wrote new ones yesterday. lowers my cost, and if I lose the stock make a good profit. GE will follow the markets.
I realize my mistake of getting involved in GE when Cramer banged his fist on the table (on CNBC) and stated Tyco and GE are both good quality companies and stocks. That is when I knew a mistake was made on my part. Cramer for the record now bashes Tyco but still likes GE.
thanks
selkirk
