Rogers Board Never Voted to Oust CEO Natale

Key Players at Rogers Communications

The chairman of Rogers Communications Inc. said the board never voted to oust the company’s chief executive officer, accusing family scion Edward Rogers of falsehoods and a pattern of meddling at the Canadian telecommunications giant, reports Bloomberg. 

In an affidavit filed late Friday, John MacDonald contested Edward Rogers’s claims that the board and his family members had voted last month 10-1 to terminate CEO Joe Natale, accusing him of multiple statements that were “untrue.”

The board had believed Natale had “exceeded his goals” and harbored misgivings about Edward Rogers’s pick to replace him -- Tony Staffieri, the company’s chief financial officer at the time. 

“It was far from clear that Mr. Staffieri would be the person best suited for the position if Mr. Natale were to leave,” said MacDonald, who replaced Edward Rogers as the company’s chairman last week. 

The attempt to replace Natale with Staffieri ignited an unprecedented boardroom showdown that has fractured one of Canada’s wealthiest families and created confusion about who is in charge of Rogers Communications, even as the company navigates a pending $16 billion takeover of rival Shaw Communications Inc.

On Sept. 19, Edward Rogers -- who heads the family trust which controls about 97% of the company’s voting shares -- sidestepped the board and fired Natale, MacDonald said. He presented the CEO’s departure as a fait accompli and misled MacDonald into believing the family supported the move, according to the filing. 

When the board met later that week, it approved Natale’s exit package -- not his departure because it had never been given an opportunity to weigh in on that decision, MacDonald said.