Edward Rogers ousted as chair amid telco power struggle
BNN Bloomberg
The power struggle behind the scenes at Rogers Communications Inc. has resulted in the son of the company's founder being pushed out from his role at the helm of the board of directors.
The power struggle behind the scenes at Rogers Communications Inc. has resulted in the son of the company's founder being pushed out from his role at the helm of the board of directors.
In a short announcement released late Thursday afternoon, Rogers announced that Edward Rogers is no longer chairman of the board. His replacement is John A. MacDonald, who has had a seat in the boardroom since 2012 and has been serving as the board's lead director and chair of its corporate governance committee. Edward Rogers will remain on the board as a director.
"This has been a challenging time for the corporation and I want to reaffirm on behalf of the majority of the board our support for and total confidence in the management team and CEO of Rogers Communications," said MacDonald in the release.
Rogers announced the change at the top of its board of directors just a few hours after Bloomberg News reported that Edward Rogers was seeking to replace five directors on the board.
It's a dramatic turn of events after almost two weeks of unrelenting media coverage of a battle that was playing out behind the scenes after The Globe and Mail reported in early October that Edward Rogers had tried and failed to oust the company's chief executive, Joe Natale. All of that has been stealing headlines as Rogers attempts to close its planned $26-billion takeover of Shaw Communications Inc.
In a conference call with analysts Thursday morning, Natale said he had the "strong, unequivocal support" of Rogers' board of directors.
