US: CBS names M&A specialists to board of directors

CPI
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According to Bloomberg News, the New York-based news and media company CBS named several M&A specialists to the board of directors; three of them women. The appointees were made on the heels of sexual-harassment allegations against Leslie Moonves, who resigned as CBS CEO Sunday, September 9.

The named executives are:

Candace Beinecke: A senior partner at the law firm Hughes Hubbard & Reed, focusing on corporate governance and M&A. In the 1990s, Beinecke counted Viacom among her high-profile clients. CBS was part of Viacom until a separation in 2006.

Barbara Byrne: Vice president of investment banking at Barclays and who spent nearly three decades at Lehman Brothers. Byrne has advised several companies on megadeals over her career, including Altria Group’s spinoff of Philip Morris International in 2008, the report continued. Byrne also co-produced and invested in “Equity”—a 2016 film about gender inequality on Wall Street.

Susan Schuman: CEO of SYPartners. Schuman is a consultant who has worked with executives at several major companies, including IBM, Facebook, Starbucks, and the CW, which is co-owned by CBS.
Brian Goldner: Chairman and CEO of Hasbro. Goldner leads a company that’s trying to replace lost revenue caused by the recent liquidation of Toys ”R” Us. Hasbro has done business with CBS in the past, including making products based on “Star Trek.”
Dick Parsons: A venture capitalist and former CEO of Time Warner, which he led from 2002 to 2007. Parsons was in charge of the company that owns HBO, a rival to CBS’s Showtime. He was credited with calming internal discord at the company following the merger with AOL.
Strauss Zelnick: A private equity executive and CEO of Take-Two. Zelnick became president of 20th Century Fox while still in his early 30s. He later ran music company BMG before founding his investment firm, which went on to own Take-Two.

CBS recently sued Shari Redstone, the daughter of media mogul Sumner Redstone, claiming that her calls for a merger with Viacom were detrimental to the interests of other CBS shareholders.

Full Content: Bloomberg
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