Lion's Gate

The annual high tide of shareholder's meetings and, accordingly, of proxy contests arrives in the late spring and early summer. That tide is now going out.

Still, there are some waves incoming that continue to lap against the sandcastle of our attention -- one of them is the possibility of a proxy contest at the September annual meeting of Lion's Gate, the entertainment company.

There was a fascinating article on this in the L.A. Times yesterday. It said that Carl Icahn owns 17.7% of the company and after a period in which he was very critical of the board has become suspiciously quiet lately, as if mulling whether he will put up a challenge slate for September.

Lion's Gate has had some very big cable-television hits, notably Mad Men and Weeds. I have illustrated this post with a photo of the irresponsible bachelor uncle of the series Weeds, Andy Botwin by name, played by Justin Kirk. Easily my favorite. But this isn't supposed to be a television show fanboy type of blog.

Let me close, then, by saying that should Icahn seek to cause trouble, Lion's Gate does have some large shareholders who are friendly with management, among them Michael Steinberg, whose Steinberg Asset Management owns 14.6%, and Gordon Crawford, whose Capital Research Global Investors holds about 9.5%.