It is hereby proposed that all merger proposals be submitted to shareholders for preliminary consultation before being presented to government authorities.
It is the shareholders who own a publicly traded company, and management are their employees. A merger is a major change in the corporation which should only be instigated or announced once it has received the approval of the owners/shareholders. A direction such as this cannot be taken behind closed doors, within a clique, and represents, at first sight (prima facie), an overstepping of power on the part of management and the board of directors which should, in the latter instance, be acting on behalf of the shareholders. One of the causes of the failure of such projects is the lack of consultation with shareholders coupled with a poorly conceived and poorly presented public relations campaign which, at the least, is an affront to the public who are presented with a fait accompli. It would have been wiser had the shareholders been consulted on such a major change in the institution – it can’t be said often enough – of which they are the de jure owners if not the de facto owners.