More Drama with Williams Board of Directors – Coming and Going

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As the World TurnsMidstream giant Williams continues to be whipsawed by corporate raiders and pressure from investors to start performing better financially. The evidence for that bold statement comes from observing what's happening with the board of directors. Following an aborted merger with Energy Transfer Equity, six of Williams’ board members tried to engineer a palace coup to depose current CEO Alan Armstrong. The coup failed and the board members quit in July (see Half of Williams Board, Including 2 Corporate Raiders, Quit). One of the board members who quit was corporate raider Keith Mesiter, founder and managing partner of Corvex Management. Meister is a protege of Carl Ichan, hence we call him Mini-Me. After quitting, Meister decided he wanted back on the board and began a proxy fight to take control of the company (see Corvex Raider Launches Hostile Takeover Attempt of Williams). In August, Williams appointed three new members of the board, all of them well-qualified (see Williams Appoints 3 New Board Members, Confounds Corp Raider). In September Williams continued with what it calls its “Board refreshment plan” by appointing two more new board members (see More Board Shakeups Coming to Williams). At that time Williams also announced three current board members who were on the board prior to the big shake-up (three who didn’t quit in July) will be gone by the next annual meeting on Nov. 23. Lost yet? All of these board gyrations are giving us a headache. Yesterday Williams felt the need to further expound on their board machinations by issuing a statement that says the three board members not standing for reelection are doing so "voluntarily"...

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