Seigal v. Merrick

441 F. Supp. 587
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. New York
DecidedOctober 26, 1977
Docket74 Civ. 2475 and 74 Civ. 2630
StatusPublished

This text of 441 F. Supp. 587 (Seigal v. Merrick) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Seigal v. Merrick, 441 F. Supp. 587 (S.D.N.Y. 1977).

Opinion

FINDINGS OF FACT AND CONCLUSIONS OF LAW

CONSTANCE BAKER MOTLEY, District Judge.

These consolidated cases are shareholder derivative suits on behalf of Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation (Fox). The complaints contain allegations of, inter alia, violations of Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder, as well as breach of fiduciary duty and waste and mismanagement of corporate assets by David Merrick and certain present and former officers and directors (defendant-directors) of Fox. The suspect actions of the defendant-directors included 1) Fox’s tender offer for at least 2,000,000 shares in 1974; 2) the filing of a lawsuit by Fox in this court in 1974; and 3) the 1974 purchase by Fox from Merrick of 747,900 shares of Fox stock for the sum of $2,400,000 above the then market price of the stock.

Plaintiffs alleged that the purpose of these three transactions was to protect the positions and personal interests of the defendant-directors. These actions were set for trial on February 14, 1977.

On February 10,1977 the parties in these consolidated actions signed a Stipulation of Settlement (Stipulation) (attached hereto as Appendix A) which would have terminated the actions if approved by the court. Notice of the proposed settlement was duly mailed to the shareholders of Fox. Rule 23.1, Fed.R.Civ.P.

The terms of the Stipulation which are at issue are essentially the following: The defendant-directors are to pay $1,138,500 to Fox. Upon receipt of $1,062,500 of this sum, Fox is to issue 425,000 “rights” to the defendant-directors to divide among themselves as they choose. Each of these rights may be converted into one share of Fox stock and may be exercised at a price of $13.25. There are numerous restrictions and provisions regarding the rights. The most important are that the rights cannot be exercised for one year after the settlement is approved by the court but can be exercised for a period of three years after the one year hiatus. There is also a provision restricting the sale of the underlying stock after the exercise of the rights. 1

The settlement, of course, provides for the termination of the instant lawsuits, but *589 also provides for the settlement of related state court actions and a claim by David Merrick against Fox.

On May 13, 1977 a Fox shareholder, Muriel Koby, filed a “Notice of Intention to Object to Proposed Compromise and Settlement”. A preliminary hearing on the fairness of the settlement was held on May 23, 1977. At a subsequent hearing on June 27, 1977 the issues to be tried regarding the settlement were formulated. The questions of fact to be tried were: 1) the value as of February 10, 1977 of the stock rights to be transferred to the defendant-directors under the settlement; 2) whether there would be any compensation going to Fox for these rights, or whether the purported compensation is, in fact, illusory; and 3) whether there was any fraud with respect to the valuation of the rights and the compensation going to the corporation in that certain information regarding the spectacular success of the motion picture Star Wars or other matters was withheld from the shareholders at the time the settlement agreement was entered into.

The legal issues to be decided by the court v/ere: 1) whether the use of Fox’s treasury stock to satisfy the exercise of the stock rights violated the preemptive rights of Fox’s shareholders; 2) whether the “Notice of Settlement Hearing” to the Fox shareholders was adequate; and 3) what effect Green v. Santa Fe Industries, Inc., 430 U.S. 462, 97 S.Ct. 1292, 51 L.Ed.2d 480 (1977) would have had on the merits of these actions. These issues were litigated on October 11, 12, 13, and 14.

The court now makes the following findings of fact and conclusions of law based on the documents related to the settlement submitted by all parties (including affidavits attached to the proponents’ and objector’s papers and all attached exhibits) and based upon the evidence elicited at the October hearing.

Findings of Fact

1. Fox has conceded, and this concession has not been challenged by any other proponent of the settlement, that the Stipulation would not be fair to Fox if viewed from the point of view of the present time since the value of the Fox stock has more than doubled from its February 10th price of 11 and 3/8.

2. All the proponents argue that as of February 10, 1977, the day the Stipulation was signed, it was a fair and reasonable settlement of the lawsuits.

3. Although the directors purported to pay $.80 as the predetermined value for each stock right to be received under the settlement (with the remaining $1.70 per right going to the cost of the settlement itself), 2 the court, relying on the testimony of the objector’s expert, Colman Abbe, finds that each right was worth approximately $3.50 as of February 10, 1977 based on information then available to the public.

A fundamental difference between the valuation theory of Abbe and the valuation theory of the proponents’ expert, Stanley S. Shuman, is that they measured the value of these rights from different points of view. Abbe ascribed $3.50 as the value of these rights to the actual recipients, mainly John L. Vogelstein who was to receive 376,800 of the 425,000 rights. Schuman said the open market value of the rights was approximately $.80. Thus the court is called upon to decide which is the correct valuation theory as a matter of law. A large part of the disparity in the valuations may be explained by the fact that restrictions in the free transfer of the rights would lower their value in the eyes of the buyer in a free market, whereas the restrictions would mean little to Vogelstein since the evidence shows that he had been interested in accumulating shares of Fox stock for a period of time prior to February 10, 1977 and would, presumably, not be interested in transferring his rights anyway.

*590 The court finds that the value should be the actual value to the actual recipients, not the value in a theoretical open market for such rights. The stock rights transaction is a “closed” one in the sense that none of these rights has or apparently ever will be offered to the public or other shareholders of Fox. Furthermore, from the point of view of the benefits to Fox, the value of the rights should be the value to the actual recipients since, in fairness to Fox and its shareholders, Fox should be receiving as much for these rights as it can legitimately get from the actual buyers. The directors could not buy these rights from anyone in an open market, only from Fox. There is thus no reason why the rights should be based on a theoretical “open market” value when such an open market does not exist.

4. Thus, the defendant-directors received 425,000 stock rights valued at approximately $3.50 each for a total value of $1,487,500 (425,000 X $3.50). In return, the corporation was to receive a total cash payment of $1,138,500.

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Related

Santa Fe Industries, Inc. v. Green
430 U.S. 462 (Supreme Court, 1977)
Wesson v. Mississippi River Corporation
486 F.2d 1398 (Second Circuit, 1973)
Levin v. Mississippi River Corp.
59 F.R.D. 353 (S.D. New York, 1973)

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Bluebook (online)
441 F. Supp. 587, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/seigal-v-merrick-nysd-1977.