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PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Shareholders of Sovereign Bancorp will get their first chance on Wednesday to confront the board of directors about a controversial acquisition deal they opposed and that was crafted in a way to bypass the need for shareholder approval.
But it's not clear what effect they will have at the months-delayed annual shareholders meeting, since Banco Santander Central Hispano S.A.'s purchase of a 19.8 percent stake in Sovereign for $2.4 billion in cash closed in June. Sovereign simultaneously had bought Independence Community Bank Corp. in New York for $3.6 billion, also in cash.
"If this board holds true to form, it will ignore shareholders no matter what they say," said Chris Young, director of mergers and acquisitions research at Institutional Shareholder Services, or ISS, a proxy advisory firm in Rockville, Md. "This company has pursued every trick in the book to disenfranchise shareholders."
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