Buyout fever run amuck at Dow Chemical

Posted Apr 12th 2007 11:30AM by Tom Taulli
Filed under: Private Equity, Monster Worldwide (MNST), Dow Chemical (DOW)

It's not a good day for executives. The CEO of Vonage (NYSE: VG) is out. So is the CEO Monster Worldwide (NASDAQ: MNST).

But perhaps the most bizarre case is the sudden departures at Dow Chemical (NYSE: DOW). They include a director and senior advisor, J. Pedro Reinhard, and an executive vice president, Romeo Kreinberg. This is according to a story in the Wall Street Journal [subscription].

The issue? Well, they were trying to sell the company.

I'm not sure if that's in their job description -- but, hey, at least they were trying to enhance shareholder value. In fact, Dow has been the subject of a variety of buyout rumors lately. The buzz was that the company would go for a whopping $54 billion. KKR was reported to be involved in the deal.

Although, I do wonder how strong the internal controls are at Dow. Aren't they supposed to have some corporate governance classes and things like that?

Oh well.

But keep in mind that there are many hungry private equity firms that make constant cold calls to companies. If you got such a money call, would you take it?

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and the EDGAR-Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.

Tags: DOW, Executive resignations, ExecutiveResignations