Corporate gossip: MLSE chair Larry Tanenbaum unknowingly foiled the Teachers’ plot to unseat him

In striking an agreement with Rogers and Bell to buy the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan’s majority stake in Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, Larry Tanenbaum apparently dodged a multi-million-dollar bullet. The Globe and Mail reports the pension plan was prepared to can Tanenbaum as MLSE chairman before he played kingmaker in the joint ownership deal between the twin telecom giants. It’s debatable whether Teachers could’ve actually ousted Tanenbaum, who was never directly threatened. But they had plenty of reasons to begrudge the man who reportedly wields “unusual leverage at MLSE, despite holding only 20 per cent.” Of course, with the Bell/Rogers deal that’s now 25 per cent. Read the entire story [Globe and Mail] »