Nearly half of the Williams board (6 of 14 board members) were part of a cabal that tried to force the company to sell itself to Energy Transfer Equity. Following the aborted merger, six of Williams’ board members tried to engineer a palace coup to depose current CEO Alan Armstrong. The coup failed and the board members were either forced out, or resigned in disgust, we’re not sure (see Half of Williams Board, Including 2 Corporate Raiders, Quit). Among the board members pushing for a sale to ETE and pushing for the ouster of Armstrong, was Keith Meister, a disciple and student of evil corporate raider Carl Icahn. Another corporate raider investor who had joined forces with Meister was Eric Mandelblatt, from Soroban Capital Partners. We have an update. Meister is still pushing Williams to get a new board and get rid of Armstrong–as evidenced by a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. However, there’s been a split among the corporate raiders. Mandelblatt/Soroban is no longer colluding with Meister to push for board changes…
