Fall from grace

(Upstart) It’s getting hard to sift through all the lawsuits that shareholders are throwing at failing companies. Every time an earnings report comes out, there’s another group of angry investors looking to get some cash back. You have to feel sorry for the fools. Apparently they’re expecting companies to make money. Strange.

But this Sprint lawsuit, this is dangerous. It’s the type of closed-door conspiracy (their word, not mine) that keeps you up late at night. Powerful executives. Hundreds of millions of dollars. Secretly changing the rules of the game so options could be sold before things fell apart. It’s like a Martin Sheen movie without the nice guys.

And now I’m picturing a lot of rich ex-executives on a beach somewhere, laughing at the idiocy of their investors who voted in their own destruction, lighting cigars with hundreds. And they’re patting each other on the back as they sip some strange fruity drink with an umbrella shoved in it. (But that’s how I usually picture all rich executives. There’s something about umbrella drinks and the rich that’s linked in my brain).

These are all just accusations--we have to remember that. And, to be fair, the New York Times quoted a Sprint spokesperson saying that the whole thing is ludicrous. That there’s no way this is some grand conspiracy thought up by Sprint’s executives for their own gains. There were other reasons for them to exercise their options and ditch right after the shareholders approved the merger. Before it was blocked. Before the stock fell apart.

Maybe Sprint’s executives were totally ignorant of the possibility that a Justice Department hell-bent on busting up monopolies would think of the merger of two of the largest telcos as dangerous. Maybe they were just wandering through with their business plan, not noticing the world around them.

But it doesn’t really matter. Whether or not the Amalgamated Bank of New York will win their case, I suddenly feel jaded. I keep thinking of Bernie Ebbers just after the merger fell apart. He looked so strong. And I keep wondering if maybe he knew, maybe he wasn’t the fallen hero, maybe he was one of the conspirators.

And then I realize that this lawsuit has taken the innocence away from big business. That never again will we be able to look at CEOs and think of them as pure, driven men and women. That maybe what this was about all along was money. How will I ever explain this to my children?

David Schober is Staff Writer for Upstart. He drinks his bourbon straight--no chaser, and no damn umbrella. Write him at david_schober@intertec.com.