More directors for GBS
by Volker Weber
GBS Enterprises Incorporated GBSX ... today announced the appointment of five new independent Board members, increasing the size of the Board from two to seven
If you invested seven weeks ago at Lotusphere, you are now down 55% — nine months ago and you are down 74%. Adding directors can indeed help generate new business opportunities. Or it can turn into a corporate boat race.
Comments
I love the corporate boat race illustration. I haven't seen that one before, but it's sadly true in far too many cases. For GBS, they've added a CFO (they hadn't had one before?) and now have seven board members instead of just the one (Mr. Ott) that was the case a year ago, I believe. If I'm reading it correctly (and that's open to debate), it sounds as if the company is being forced to "grow up" and make some hard financial and strategic decisions.
While it may be cool to a tech crowd to have quirky business cards and self-created job titles, it doesn't always play well in the corporate board room when you're trying to land the million dollar contract and ongoing business in large conservative organizations. I've seen (and been part of) this before, and it becomes a watershed moment in the company... do you grow up and project a professional image, or do you self-destruct due to culture clash?
The answer can only be known fully in hindsight, when you can look back and analyze what worked or what went wrong. In the case of GBS, the next six to twelve months will be interesting, to put it mildly...
Maybe just the price for for raising new money. You get capital and an investor gets some control. The trading volume is too low for a detailed analysis anyway (in my opinion).
There are some passionate people at GBS (say rowers) who speak very positive about their work. They even believe in what IBM is trying with Notes and Domino.
In some way it would be a pity if they fail.
The corporate boat race was great fun. Thank you.
So one of the new directors is Woody Allen??!!! Cool! That should make the board meetings somewhat entertaining, at least
Hugh Hefner passed and Roman Polanski cannot travel.
And Henning, you are of course right. Just look at some insider transactions. Also look at the option grants as filed.
