Blackstone 44% owner of Leica

[Roger Hicks]

Roger, when I read this post the first time, I stumbled over the strong emphasis of 'don't make anything else'. Me, my friends and the whole service industry we don't make anything. I work in the software industry. What I do is not tangible. The business that runs on our solutions is mostly virtual and not tangible. With that post I had the feeling that someone is pi**ing on my shoes and the shoes of millions of other people doing similar things.

Hence my phrase "make or do" -- though I'd say that making an intangible is still making, and even if it's not, it's still doing (though of course not all software contributes to human betterment...). I can see how you might read it your way; I hope that my way is correct, and that you would now agree with me.

Cheers,

R.

 

[valdas]

Point taken, and I do agree this can be the case often in highly dispersed ownership structures. In this case though, my understanding is that an owner with over 95% share sold less than half of that share to the private equity firm. Hence, I conclude there is possibly still one larger shareholder out there. Without reading the articles of the specific shareholder agreement though, I can say no more.

Cheers,
Rob

agree on this, but in similar situations usually there are shareholder agreements in place deciding de facto how the company is run. i doubt Blackstone would by 44% without securing a significant influence.

 

[robbeiflex]

robbe as you said, largest shareholder wins. no telling if theres a 51% single owner, so no telling whose right. however the reality is any shareholder with that much ownership interest has a tremendous amount of clout, and pure mathematics aside, will have a significant say in how the compay's run. it is purely naive to think someone takes a stake like this and doesnt expect to exert control. these are big boys here, theyre not screwing around on chat forums. theyre in business to exert control to insure they make money, and whether you believe it or not, they will do so in this case.

I did not say that 44% is not a significant stake, only that it is mathematically possible to have a larger one. Also, yes it would be naive to think that such a large stake does not influence major decisions, but I didn't say that either. And yes, I do believe they expect to make money on their stake in Leica. They are Blackstone after all, and I do work in the industry and know what that means. However, they are no different from all of the other companies out there that exist to make money, which let's be honest is almost all of them. So what is the problem exactly?