Let me know if this is not the right place to post this and I'll move it! I just thought this group of people might be able to help me understand this issue further:
I am looking into a small cable company, Cable One (NYSE: CABO). They provide cable services in rural America.
They recently replaced their CFO with a guy named Steven Scott Cochran. Note: if you google him, he is not the Steven Scott Cochran who happens to be the same age and is currently serving jail time for robbing a woman at gunpoint. At least, not to my knowledge.
Anyways, Cochran came to Cable One from a competing company, WideOpenWest (NYSE:WOW) where he was CEO.
Cochran still holds about $6MM worth of WOW stock and (from what I can tell) is still serving as the CEO of WideOpenWest's subsidiary, WideOpenWest Networks. He is also serving as President at Sigecom, another subsidiary of WOW. Lastly, Cochran is serves as CEO at another competing company, IpTel Direct.
CableOne, WideOpenWest, and IpTel Direct all compete with each other. IpTel Direct isn't publicly traded, however, CableOne and WOW each recognize each other as competitors in their annual reports. My first instinct was that IpTel was a subsidiary of WOW, however, I can't find any information on them at all beyond my terminal. Even their website says the IP address can't be found. To make things worse, the registered address of IpTel is one of those rent-an-address "virtual" locations, so it's not even a real office.
So I felt a little weird about this. Firstly, because it seems that Cochran is going to be really busy holding all of those roles. And secondly because of the inherent conflict of interest from serving in all of these positions.
I've never seen such strong competitor overlap before and I'm not quite sure what to make of it. Is this type of overlap typical amongst smaller companies in niche industries? If it is, how do you get comfortable investing with an executive serving in two roles (or more)? Could it be an indicator of a potential merger between CableOne and WOW? Alternatively, is this just raising enough red flags to land a plane?
Bonus:
There's lot of other overlap between executives too, which makes me think this is more common than I expected-
WOW CFO Rich Fish (best name ever) also serves as CFO for IpTel and ICG Telecom, both of which are WOW competitors.
Catherin Kuo, IpTel's COO is also the head of marketing at Sigecom and is a "senior key executive" at WOW.
Cash Hagen, IpTel's CTO is also the COO at WideOpenWest Network (not the parent company, the subsidiary that Cochran also works for)
Donald Martin is the Chief Legal Officer for IpTel and WOW (and WOW subsidiaries)
Extra Bonus:
I am using the CapIQ terminal, in case anyone is curious. The phone number listed for IpTel Direct is the same phone number listed for all the key executives, including Cochran, above. The phone number is a Geeker support phone number. When I called they said they have no clue who/what IpTel Direct was and that they were a call center.
Submitted October 08, 2018 at 12:01PM by thawowtso https://ift.tt/2ymRx1c
