On NRO, David Frum offers up an interview with Conrad Black - ex-CEO of Hollinger International and still its majority shareholder and chairman of the board - prefaced by these remarks:
Black is right now at the center of a furious controversy over his business dealings. This is not the venue to discuss the rights and wrongs of that controversy, and I am not the person to do it. What I can say, as someone who has worked at various times for Conrad Black, is that he has been a delightful publisher: creative, encouraging, civilized, fun. I mentioned above that the Spectator published a review in many ways critical of Black’s book. As it happens, Black owns the Spectator. Can you think of any other proprietor who would permit such criticism? And whose staff would understand that he would permit it? That one fact says more about him than I could say in a thousand times the space.
I emphasized the line "Black owns the Spectator" because it reflects a fundamental error. Black does not own the Spectator. He owns a majority of the stock of a company that owns a company that owns the Spectator. Being a majority stockholder gives him a ton of control, making it difficult to dislodge him, as I have explained before. Being a majority shareholder does not entitle Black to run the Spectator as a personal soapbox. Being a majority shareholder does not entitle Black to use $8 million of Hollinger's money to buy up FDR papers so that Black can write a better biography of FDR, as has been alleged. Being a majority shareholder does not entitle him to take 19 million pounds in unauthorized payments from the corporation, as has also been alleged. Why? Because there are minority shareholders to whom he owes fiduciary duties! Black's apparent inability to understand the difference between being an owner and a majority shareholder is precisely what landed him in his present pickle. Being treated like an owner by his syncophants probably didn't help.
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