Ethical Leveraged Buyouts TARGET ONE: CBS TELEVISION

March 29th, 2009 • Societal Marketing

I can not remember the last time I watched a decent drama on CBS. And journalism??!!! Edward Murrow would not be happy with what has become of the network. Would Dan Rather be a better CEO than Les Moonves??? Backing such a replacement, Rather for Moonves, would be a worthy use of institutional investment monies.  Also, CBS TV is worth only 500 million right now and there is lots of infighting in the Redstone clan. The time is now for ethical investing. Lets take shareholder activism to the next level.  More to follow later.

To Phillip Kotler by asp18@columbia.edu

September 18th, 2008 • Societal Marketing

Dear Dr. Kotler:

I am a great admirer of your marketing philosophy. The societal marketing concept can enable society to successful meet many of the challenges its facing today. However, merely engaging in the standard shareholder activist mode of buying a minority stake in a large cap company will merely result in the same moral impotence we have seen time and again. Only very bold, proactive moves on the part of highly organized shareholder groups and their representatives, will see significant changes to avert the next Enron. Companies that are merely ethical neutral, can only have the authentic changes to management, mission and policies necessary to achieve an optimal level of implementation of the societal marketing paradigm if ethical corporate raiders engage in leverage buyouts or other takeover mechanisms, on behalf of such shareholders.

Before the term, corporate social responsibility, csr, the logical progeny of the societal marketing concept, came to vogue, I was attempting to implement the societal marketing concept. We even spoke once or twice over the phone about my attempt to create a socially concerned media company to market such ideas to the wider public. Unfortunately, I was ahead of my time, presenting such ideas in the late 90s, during the hey day of the bubble market, where concepts such as CSR were laughable to the powers that be in both academia and the market.

I have the talent, the hutzpah, the charisma, the smarts to pull of the first large scale leverage buyout of a large cap company to change its management, mission and policies along generally agreed upon standards of CSR.

Many venture capitalists take on 20 ideas, 19 of which will fail, for the one idea that will succeed, and succeed big time.

While such ideas like Starmedia were being funded by the dozens, by entities such as CSFB, I was told my idea was not technological enough (Thoreau nicely put it when he said that our technological improvements are but an improved means to an unimproved ends. Just because we have a cell phone doesn’t mean we have anything better to say).

I need you to invest in me and this idea the way a technologically minded venture capitalist invests in an idea. I propose that you employee me, much the same way some MBA programs employ “executives in residence,” to finish the incubating research on this idea and I can submit quarterly progress reports to you.

If you feel this note is too much of a cold call, I can provide you with many sorts of luminaries that you are most familiar with (trustees of your university, for example) who will attest that, knowing me since I was merely a few feet tall (or a little boy), that while I am very zealous about this, I am also very much on the level. But, my approach here, is to offer first the merit of the concept.