OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY.(The Talk of the Town)(Conrad Black)

Publication: The New Yorker

Publication Date: 09-FEB-04

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COPYRIGHT 2004 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.

Two summers ago, Conrad Black, who was the chairman and C.E.O. of the newspaper giant Hollinger International, sent an e-mail to two of his fellow-executives complaining about the company's critics. Hollinger's stock price had been falling for two years, and shareholders had been grumbling that Black and his colleagues were more interested in lining their own pockets than in looking after the company's interests. Black found their whinging tiresome. Hollinger, he wrote, had gone public only to make "cheap use of other people's capital." In other words, the shareholders should remember their role, which was to hand over their money and keep their mouths shut. "They are a bunch of self-righteous hypocrites and ingrates," Black wrote.

Black's disdain reflected an assumption that his power was secure. When, in 1994, Hollinger went public, Black retained voting control,...

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