by Frank Maduri

Showtime: Can Magic Johnson Rebuild The LA Lakers?

The Los Angeles Lakers shocking move to reshuffle their front office to put Magic Johnson into the captain’s seat, so to speak, has come at a point where the franchise is truly at a crossroads. This type of shake up of the basketball operations of a team at this time in the season is unusual. The Lakers brought in Johnson as an “adviser” about three weeks ago, and now he is running the show.

The rationale for the decision is pretty clear: the Lakers, who are a storied NBA franchise, have been struggling for the past few seasons. The team has some young players that are talented on their roster, but they need a significant amount of work to get from the bottom of the standings back into a championship contender.

The Lakers are currently 19-39 and are spinning their wheels trying to find their identity in the post-Kobe Bryant period in their franchise history. The 2016-17 Lakers resemble a similar narrative to other teams in NBA history in the years immediately following the transition from a roster dominated by a megastar level player.

The challenging factor in the scenario is developing the right strategy to rebuild the roster and rejuvenate it back to contention. The Lakers are going to make some big, bold moves to improve this team, but they will also do it in a calculated manner.

The more pressing impetus for the move to shake up the front office on the basketball operations side of the house, is to get the core fans excited about the future of this franchise. The change to Magic Johnson certainly will create a sense of hope for the fans that the future in L.A. should improve in the near term.

This decision was a bold one from Jeannie Buss because she had to move her brother, Jim, out of the basketball operations role and back to being a co-owner. She had to separate her family ties to look at the situation as to how it relates to what the best path forward for the team would be at this point.

This decision to move forward with Magic Johnson, who won so many titles with the Lakers during the “Showtime” years, will most certainly be compared with the decision that the New York Knicks made to turn over their basketball operation to Phil Jackson. It is even more ironic that Jackson played a huge role in the success of the Lakers as their head coach and is the former fiancé of Jeannie Buss.

The fans in New York are largely dissatisfied with the tenure of Phil Jackson, and the relative lack of progress shown on reshaping the Knicks to be a successful basketball team. The Lakers fans have to hope that Magic does a lot more to shape the Lakers up than Phil Jackson has done so far with the Knicks in a similar role.

Magic Johnson obviously knows the essential elements in building a successful basketball team from the player personnel side, and he is also a successful business man, so his skill set seems very well suited to his new position within the Lakers organization. Nevertheless, it is a steep challenge taking this roster and reshaping it into a championship contender.

I think the cache that is the Lakers brand and reputation will certainly help Magic in this endeavor. The Lakers may even have some good fortune in attracting free agents because the Knicks have created so many issues for themselves between the Charles Oakley debacle and the Carmelo Anthony botched situation. The situation in New York is so bad that one current player remarked recently to the media that “nobody will go to the Knicks”.

The Lakers have been linked to current Indiana Pacers guard, Paul George, and although they could not get a deal done at the trade deadline, it is largely expected that George will join the Lakers as soon as he is able to within league guidelines.

The expectation throughout the league is that similar situations to those of Paul George will also transpire in the summer months of the offseason. The name of Russell Westbrook has been linked to the Lakers for some time now, and that speculation will probably only ratchet up further with the injection of Magic Johnson into the situation.

Some of the talent on the roster such as Nick Young and D’Angelo Russell could be the building blocks for the next version of the Lakers. The new perspective that Johnson will bring into the job will be fascinating to see as the months move forward.

There is one certainty especially if you ask a Knicks fan: Magic would be hard pressed to do much worse than Phil Jackson has done in the same role in New York. The Lakers need to get back to their championship pedigree, and Magic Johnson is just the right person to take them there.

by Frank Maduri

Follow Up: Aetna Merger With Humana Is Scuttled

The proposed $34 billion merger between two healthcare giants: Aetna and Humana, has been scrapped by the order of the court system over concerns related to higher prices and less competition in the marketplace. Both companies considered an appeal of the court decision, but announced on Wednesday that they were going to accept the decision and dismantle the merger proposal.

The deal seemed doomed to fail from the start because of the enormous impact that it would have over the healthcare of millions of Americans. It would have condensed the number of companies which provide healthcare on a nationwide basis from five to just three. The combined entity would have held a sizeable portion of the Medicare Advantage market, which is a type of medical insurance product which replaces traditional Medicare with a plan that has lower monthly premiums but higher deductibles for most services.

The combined company would have held enormous influence at the negotiating table with other healthcare entities and would have been able to essentially set prices; which could have had drastic consequences to the consumer.

It ended up being these anti-trust concerns which ultimately spelled the demise of this proposed merger. This goes against the trend in recent years of these proposed mega-mergers eventually moving ahead and beyond the anti-trust issues. The uncertainty involving the national healthcare policy with the change in the U.S. Presidency to Donald Trump most definitely played a role in the eventual scuttling of this merger proposal by the senior level executives at both companies.

I have covered mergers and acquisitions for a few years now for many different news outlets. This proposed deal had a clause called a “breakup clause” which I have seen associated with other mergers in the past, where one party agrees to pay the other an agreed upon sum of money if the deal were to not come to fruition. In this situation the Aetna side agreed to pay a breakup fee to Humana.

The breakup fee is reportedly $1 billion that Aetna will pay to Humana, which after taxes is around $630 million. The two sides spent over a year and a half preparing this merger proposal, and all of that work, effort, and resources are now out the window. The shareholders of both entities will most assuredly have some strong feelings about the lost time and energy on this merger. The Aetna shareholders have the added grievance of the breakup fee or termination fee that is being paid out which will eat into profitably totals as well.

The recent negative news speculation regarding some of the Medicare Advantage products also likely played a role in the eventual breakup of this merger. The uncertainty in Washington right now over the future of the federal government decision making regarding a potentially new national health plan also certainly had to have been factored into this situation as well.

This merger was originally proposed during the previous administration in Washington and it was designed to offset some of the conditions in the marketplace that were created by the Affordable Care Act. Those conditions pushed both Aetna and Humana to pursue a merger to synergize their operational capabilities and to streamline their costs in order to maximize profitability.

The court system and regulatory bodies had scrutinized this deal pretty harshly from the onset. The emphasis of any proposed merger in an area as crucial to the public domain as healthcare is going to be treated differently than if two companies wanted to merge to bake bread and cookies in a more efficient manner.

The backdrop to this situation is an American public that has a general distrust of health insurance carriers and is paying more out of their budget for healthcare related services than ever before. The American public also has seen wage stagnation and increased costs for other goods and services and senior citizens feel the budget squeeze; which all of these factors contributed to the opinion of the court that the merger would have had a significant impact on the price and competition in the marketplace.

Furthermore, another factor that makes this merger different than other proposed M&A activity that I have covered in the past is that the path forward is unclear. I can usually speculate in other proposals that may have gone sideways about the next move for the companies involved. The fact that the landscape in the healthcare industry is already so limited on the national level, it leaves both Aetna and Humana with very limited options.

The path for Aetna may be to look at some regional acquisition targets to improve their presence further in certain regions of the country, but that is an incremental move for sure, as they already have a pretty significant overall national profile.

The path for Humana may be to diversify some of their operational capabilities by reviewing some options to expand into other insurance products beyond Medicare Advantage. I am not sure how successful that path will be based upon the potential scrutiny some of those potential activities may be met with from the court system.

The potential changes to the national healthcare policy will eventually guide the decision making of both companies as they navigate the new terrain of the industry at that point.

In the end analysis, the scuttling of this merger, at least at first glance, seems to be the appropriate decision by both the court system and the corporations involved. It would have limited competition in the marketplace and had a negative impact on price increases for a consumer base that has grown very weary of that narrative.

The potential consequences of this ultimately unsuccessful deal could present overarching implications for future M&A activity in the healthcare industry and other industries in the months and years ahead.

by Frank Maduri

NBA Renaming of D-League & Corporate Cronyism

The NBA announced earlier today that their Development League for young prospect players to work their way to the best basketball league in the world, is being renamed and rebranded.

The NBA Development League, long known also by the nickname the D-League, is being renamed the NBA Gatorade League in a deal with one of the NBA’s largest corporate sponsors. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed and the NBA insisted in their media relations efforts today that the agreement is not to simply attach a corporate name to the D-League or to extract more money from a sponsorship relationship.

The league executives, including NBA Commissioner, Adam Silver, spoke about the agreement being a vehicle toward further integration of the Gatorade Sports Science Institute, which is currently used by star athletes in the NBA and NFL among other leagues. The Institute or (GSSI) as it is also known evaluates the impact that the performance level for athletes at the elite levels of competition endure, and what elements may be needed to provide better nutrition or conditions within the body to enhance that performance level.

The issue at hand, in my view, is that no matter how the NBA wants to spin this deal today, it is for all intents and purposes, a money grab. It is the league using the stature of their brand recognition to extract more revenue from a corporate sponsorship partner. It just looks bad, and it has the media now drumming up names like the “G-League” and “insert sponsor name here” league.

It even caused one reporter at a press event today to ask if the NBA itself was going to follow suit, and sell some type of corporate sponsorship to their name. This question was flatly denied by Commissioner Silver, but I cannot fault the reporter who asked it because the sponsorships have become so out of control in sports. I could envision it: “the NBA brought to you by State Farm Insurance” would be the new name of the league, and every five years they would change the name of the NBA to the next corporation willing to pony up the dough.

It sounds like an exaggeration, but where is the line drawn? This type of transaction today where the NBA essentially names their minor league system after a major corporate sponsor leads reasonable people to take the path of asking what the next deal is going to be centered upon.

The corporations will be pushing different concepts as well because they believe that anything that gets their brand or their name out there is a good situation. I can envision it: “the Kraft Foods NBA Eastern Conference Standings” or the “Coca-Cola Western Conference Standings” where the trophies would be a giant box of cookies or a huge metal Coke bottle.

The decision by the NBA with regard to the D-League, my apologies, now the Gatorade League, is corporate cronyism at its finest. Any entity that gets that type of sponsorship shelled out some large amount of dollars, and with that large expenditure that entity will demand access and influence. The company in this scenario is Gatorade which is a division of Pepsico, and they will want access to players in exchange for this elite level of sponsorship.

The involvement of corporations to this degree should create some type of caution within the offices of that particular major sports league and their franchise owners. However, in the case of the NBA, which has also approved corporate sponsorships on the jerseys of each individual team starting next season that caution seems to be nonexistent.

It is scary to think what type of influence the corporations will be able to wield within the structure of the NBA. The increased revenue is going to have a direct effect on player salary increases, and the salary increases will have an effect on operating costs. The owners, when faced with operating cost increases then start to look at raising ticket prices on the fans and on the businesses who purchase season ticket plans or suites to entertain clients.

The NBA made a bold move today which could have repercussions on the way they handle future corporate sponsorships. They opened the door to a potentially dangerous pathway, where corporate involvement could become detrimental to the integrity of the sport that they were meant to preserve. The cumulative effect on the fans, the customers in this situation, could be a source of a serious miscalculation by the NBA if these types of deals are made in the future.

by Frank Maduri

Football Talk

I write about both sports and television ratings often on Frank’s Forum, and with the Super Bowl just concluded, I was reflecting back on the past few months. The Super Bowl is usually the most watched event on television of the entire year, and some editions of the sporting event have set all-time U.S. television ratings records.

The thrilling comeback and overtime win for the New England Patriots as they defeated the Atlanta Falcons had overnight numbers that are lower than previous Super Bowls. However, the event still posted a 48 overnight rating and about 110 million viewers which is a huge number in terms of the way rating numbers have changed in recent years.

The start of the NFL season coincides with the start of the new season of TV programs. The major networks have had the same strategy for years regarding viewership. The networks tend to pair successful returning series with new series concepts and then determine over a period of time if those lineups are successful.

Many new television concepts for network series usually are not successful. It is very difficult terrain especially with the new technologies available to viewers to successfully navigate the waters of the new media world we live in. The streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu have only increased the competition for new television programs to gain interest and stay viable.

One new series that has become one of the highest rated new shows on network television is from NBC and titled, “This Is Us”. It is a favorite show for my wife and I which we enjoy watching together. In our busy lives we never watch it live on the night it airs, we always watch it via On Demand from our provider, which serves to validate my earlier point on the changes to viewership patterns.

Those of you who have not seen the show yet, but plan to watch it from the beginning or at least check out the pilot episode (which I recommend) I do not want to provide any spoilers. I will summarize one scene which serves as the point of this whole piece on football.

In one scene in an early episode of the show one of the female characters is observing the guy she is romantically involved with while he is watching a Pittsburgh Steelers football game on TV. The scene then shifts to a flashback of her childhood where she is sitting on the floor observing her father as he intently watches the Steelers play on TV.

Then, she explains to the guy she is with, that she cannot relive her childhood and sit there while he watches football. She asks him to teach her about the game, which he gladly obliges, and in the time advanced sequences, she emerges as a huge fan of the sport.

It evoked a memory of a similar situation for my wife and I, except my father-in-law was not a sports fan. She wanted to spend time with me, and anyone who knows me understands that I enjoy sports very much. I enjoy watching games and talking about sports of all types. I especially love and enjoy NFL football.

My wife asked me in the same type of way to teach her the game of football, so that she could understand what was going on, and that we could talk about it. Her brothers are both avid New York Giants fans, so it helped that she knew some of the history of that team for me to use as my baseline for her.

I taught my wife, just as the character “Jack” taught “Rebecca” about football, using props for the lineman and the other positions on the field. We watched NFL Network together, and during the course of watching the games I would answer questions about the rules of the game, which was also a lot of fun for me.

It seems like before I knew it, my wife, like the character “Rebecca”, was a passionate football fan, yelling at the TV (totally out of character for my wife) and watching the Giants on her smart phone while cleaning or doing other household tasks, or while out running errands.

We watch several out of market games together too, we discuss the issues facing other teams in the league, and the strategy of the NFL Draft and that process. In the years that followed, we would have gatherings for Sunday football games, and started our own traditions for the Super Bowl.

In the past couple of years, with my working the weekends, we have lunch together on Sunday before I go in to work, and we will watch the Giants or whoever is on at 1PM. We talk about that game, and then she will put the Sunday primetime game on for when I get home. We will very often watch that together.

In reflecting on the past several weeks, the whole situation really came to a head when I had to work all of the Divisional Playoff weekend a few weeks ago. I would come home late and my wife provided all the background on the games. I listened as she talked about three-man or four-man rush defensive calls, on challenged referee decisions that went to the replay booth, and on the Cowboys play calling to get back into that toe-to-toe battle with the Packers.

She told me all about the Falcons and their vaunted offense, her opinion on why the Seahawks could not get going, and how Aaron Rodgers is the best quarterback at extending plays. It is a nice and healthy distraction away from all the things that can clutter up life and serves as a point of interest for us to have together and share.

Now, football season is over, and football talk for my wife and I will shift to the offseason topics of teams improving rosters, draft prospects, and new head coaches trying to turn around teams that have underperformed.

After that wild Super Bowl game was concluded I told my wife how I will miss football. It always seems so long to wait for it to return again in September, but she reassured me and told me that I say the same thing every season. It will be back before we know it, and she told me that I will shift my focus to hockey primarily, a sport she does not know as well (but will watch with me).

I will miss the games on Sunday afternoons and the Monday nights, but I will miss our football talks. The process of writing this essay helped me understand how much I value the memories of those talks as well as to gain further insight as to how much my wife loves me. She loves me enough to learn about football because she wanted to spend more time with me.

I am lucky, fortunate, and blessed. It is my hope that you find that same type of common interest with the special someone that you share your life with and that time can be fulfilling and fun. In the meantime, I will wait until next season for our football talks to return.

by Frank Maduri

Power Surge: JCP&L, Property Values, and Huge Power Lines In Monmouth County

The Monmouth County Reliability Project is the given name to a rather controversial proposed plan to build 210 foot high power lines along the New Jersey Transit railroad tracks from Red Bank to Aberdeen, a distance of about 12 miles. The power lines would run through the backyards of residents from several towns in Red Bank, Middletown, Holmdel and Hazlet.

The concern of the residents is the effect that these enormous towers and power lines will have on property values as well as safety, should the lines become dislodged or downed by high winds.

The mayors of certain local towns have come forward in support of the plan in recent days. The local news sources reported that the utility company involved in this project, Jersey Central Power and Light (JCP&L), has reviewed several different areas and pathways for these types of power lines before determining this current path along the NJ Transit rail line.

The project is seen as a necessary system improvement to energy delivery systems in order to curtail the major outages of electric power such as with Hurricane Sandy. The matter is currently before a judge who will rule on whether or not this project will move forward at a hearing in the near future.

The impact of these large scale power lines and towers to the environment is not documented but the educated guess would be that there must be some detrimental effect to having that much electrical current being pushed through a twelve mile span.

Many area residents have joined into a group known as R.A.G.E. which has been rather vocal in their opposition to this proposal from JCP&L with demonstrations, lawn signs, and bumper stickers to unify their message.

The area proposed for these power lines and their gigantic towers is a densely populated residential area filled with families. The general sentiment of the residents is that they pay a significant amount in property taxes and that these lines could be built in an area that is less densely populated.

The impact on the property values of these homes is most certainly going to be decidedly negative. It reminds me of the intense scrutiny given to the high tension power lines in Toms River which created notorious “cancer clusters” and residents here have similar concerns.

The irony here is that the power company and the municipal governments keep referring to this project as a way to safeguard and improve the electrical energy supply during inclement weather or natural disasters. However, a storm of an event in the magnitude of a Hurricane Sandy could damage or destroy one or more of these towers and damage the power lines resulting in service disruptions.

The area is so densely populated that it could be a significant public safety risk if something were to go wrong with the performance of these towers and lines.

The final public meeting on this matter will be held tomorrow night at 7 PM at Middletown North High School and the judge for the upcoming hearing on this important decision will be present. The time for you to voice your opinion is now, the stakes are high and the clock is ticking.

by Frank Maduri

Raiders Relocation: From Oakland to Vegas – Two Cities Two Different Approaches

The Raiders filed paperwork with the NFL on Thursday to relocate to Las Vegas which means that the final step is the formal approval of 24 of 32 owners to clear the path to the desert for this wayward franchise. The team has called Oakland home at two different points in their history from 1960 to 1982 and then again from 1995 to the present.

The Raiders have been seeking a new stadium facility to replace the aging Coliseum, which is basically falling apart at this point. The discussions with Oakland officials have been going nowhere for years regarding a new facility, largely because Oakland is still paying off loans for the expansion of the Coliseum which was done in the mid-1990s.

The Raiders attempted to join the Chargers in a joint bid for a new stadium in the suburbs of Los Angeles, but the final proposal was voted down by the league owners in favor of the Rams proposal for the Inglewood stadium development project.

The Las Vegas option for the Raiders came about shortly after the team saw the Los Angeles pathway dry up. The resort city voted aggressively to approve $750 million in public funds (raised through an increase in the hotel tax) towards the development of a 65,000 seat domed stadium. This measure represents the largest amount of public financing approved for a sports stadium in American history.

The Raiders owner, Mark Davis, has been committed to moving the franchise to Las Vegas once the project was given the green light by the Governor of Nevada. The potential for a new stadium with new revenue streams to help grow the Raiders brand just was too enticing for Davis to pass up.

The way this relocation (if it is made official in the March league meetings) has gone is a tale of two cities with two different approaches to the situation. Oakland has been reluctant to use any public money for a stadium, while Las Vegas allocated the most public financing ever.

Oakland has other issues though with the school system in need of upgrades, public safety spending needed, and other necessary infrastructure projects. The city attempted to “save” the Raiders by entering into an agreement to have former Raiders Ronnie Lott and Rodney Peete develop concepts for a new stadium on the Coliseum site.

The issue with that process though has been two-fold: the financing for the construction of the stadium has been unclear, and the Raiders have been left out of the discussions about the potential development of a facility that they are supposed to operate within. It goes without saying that the situation is pretty messy and might have been engineered by officials in Oakland as an effort to play to the public that they at least attempted to keep the team.

Furthermore, there are residents in Oakland that feel strongly that the new stadium should be financed privately and that Davis and his wealthy partners should have moved forward a plan to build a facility on their own. Those same residents feel that the public funds available should be used on other necessary services and improvements to schools and other areas.

There are still others who will blame either Davis for being greedy or the Oakland civic leaders for being too shortsighted if the Raiders end up leaving the city. That is what fascinates me about these situations, the viewpoints are usually so varied about the same fundamental issue.

The Vegas deal looks like a win-win scenario for both the city and the team. The NFL league office is not thrilled about losing a team in a top TV market like the Oakland/Bay Area for a team in Las Vegas which is a much smaller metro area and media market. The factor to offset that is the only other major league team in Las Vegas right now is the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights who begin play as an expansion team next season. The other factor is the national appeal and following that the Raiders have which will follow the franchise wherever it calls home.

The officials in Las Vegas along with the casino hotel owners were very committed to making this proposal work because they saw a unique opportunity to get a franchise through relocation to their city. I have written previously that this proposal was a hit with those same groups because the NFL season runs in the autumn months which are traditionally the slowest point of the tourism cycle for Las Vegas. The relocation of the Raiders would fill hotel rooms when the demand is usually low and create opportunities for fans to travel for long weekends to see their team play the Raiders in Las Vegas.

The relocation papers have been filed and it is difficult to see a scenario where Oakland retains the Raiders at this point. The NFL owners would be setting a potentially bad precedent for their own self-interest if they voted down the proposal for a stadium with the most public financing ever allocated, in a time where many cities are not willing to put forth public funds for stadiums at all.

I always feel badly for the fans in Oakland who will lose the Raiders in this situation, and some of them may remember losing them in the early 1980s when they first relocated to Los Angeles. It could have all been avoided if Oakland had been more flexible in their approach and if greed did not dominate the motivations of the people involved on both sides.
In the end we will never know if a privately funded stadium would have worked in Oakland or not. The Raiders will most likely be playing in a new domed palatial facility off the Vegas Strip in a couple of years, while Oakland will be paying for an empty Coliseum with mountains of unfilled seats and memories of a team that was once their own.

by Frank Maduri

Follow Up: Dow – DuPont Merger Update

The gigantic potential merger of Dow Chemical and DuPont, both with market caps at around $60 billion each, is being fiercely opposed in the European Union by regulatory authorities. The biggest concern is that the combined company would spend less on crop protection which the regulators maintain will lower overall global food supply production.

This comes amid news that the global population is growing and food supply chain issues will become increasingly more important. The financial markets have also responded amid these reports with the indicator known as short interest falling 88% regarding Dow Chemical. That is a hint that Wall Street thinks this deal could be headed for a complete halt.

This deal is also under scrutiny from several directions from a variety of interested parties: the farming and agricultural sector, the environmental activist groups, the GMO food supply activist groups, and from within the chemical industry segment. These groups each have different issues with the proposed consummation of these two industrial titans.

The farming and agricultural sector has concerns with this deal as it pertains to eliminating competition for certain components necessary for crop production. The decrease in competition could likely lead to higher prices for these items which will impact the profits for farms of all types, the majority of which are family owned.

The environmental activist segment has concerns about the increased production of several chemical products if these two conglomerates merge and begin synergizing their product lines. The increased production of products such as weed killing sprays as well as other pesticides or herbicides are at the forefront of their opposition to this deal. They also share the concerns of the E.U. regulatory boards regarding the effects that cost cutting combined with increased amounts of product being manufactured will have on the plants and factories being utilized.

Furthermore, these groups have increasing concerns over the potential for air and water pollution from the manufacturing practices used in the operation of these production factories for these types of chemical items. The emission of carbon is at the center of the climate change debate which is a very serious situation in Europe at this point within their discourse.

The GMO and food supply activism groups have issues with this proposed deal because of the potential for increased amounts of GMO seeds and the increased amounts of pesticides, weed killers, and other agro-chemical products that it will push into the marketplace. These groups also share similar concerns to the European regulators regarding the cost cutting strategies surrounding crop protection and the direct impact that will have on the food supply.

Finally, there are concerns from within the chemical industry segment regarding this deal as well. It should be understood though that most of the issues that this segment has with the proposed formation of Dow-DuPont is regarding the role it could play in decreasing competition. It will become even more difficult for smaller chemical manufacturers to compete in the business environment with a combined Dow-DuPont, the possibility of a combined Bayer-Monsanto, and the Chinese chemical conglomerate with their proposed bid for Syngenta.

The trend toward consolidation is invariably a concern for the other companies within the chemical industry segment as it will also be an area of scrutiny for the regulatory bodies involved in both the E.U. and the United States.

The implications are enormous for the future mergers and consolidations of the companies mentioned earlier: Bayer – Monsanto, and the potential for a Chinese company to obtain a key specialty chemical maker such as Syngenta. Those proposed mergers also impact the Dow-DuPont deal. In the event that the regulatory powers involved determine that either Dow or DuPont, or for that matter both entities, have to sell off pieces of their respective companies to make the merger more palatable; the other major players in the industry will be out of the mix to buy those business units.

Syngenta, Monsanto, and Bayer will be very reluctant to make any purchases at all while their proposed merger deals are also under regulatory scrutiny. This inability to find potential willing buyers for the business units at Dow-DuPont could also cause the merger process to go completely off the tracks.

The process will continue to play out in Europe, and the decision rendered there will have an impact on the manner in which the U.S. federal regulators view this potential acquisition. The stakes are high for farmers, for the environment, for the food supply, and for our natural resources. The stakes are high for us all if this merger moves forward and two giant companies have that much influence over the most important aspects of our global community.

by Frank Maduri

Preserving The Legacy: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

It is on this day that America pauses to reflect on the life and legacy of a great leader and an amazing citizen, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The impact that his example made on generations of people is so profound that it cannot be fully explained in words.

Dr. King worked for the equal rights of all people regardless of skin tone or what they looked like, he also embraced a peaceful and diplomatic approach to change. His words and his actions were guided by Christian ideals and centered on love and hope conquering fear and hate.

The America that we live in today is very different because of the actions of Dr. King, and the civil rights movement that he and some other leaders inspired. It is a country that has such incredible potential and though we have made strides, like any society we have room for improvement and growth.

On a personal level, I have always had an affinity and respect for Dr. King and for his approach to tackling such fierce opposition and his courage in the face of unbelievable personal attacks. His Letter From A Birmingham Jail was a book that impacted my life very significantly. I put myself in his place and could not imagine the emotions he must have dealt with at that stage of his life.

Many of you also know that on Martin Luther King Day four years ago I decided to start this blog, Frank’s Forum, I made the determination to go out on my own and start a new business. I also made the choice to begin to write more pieces for the general public and really put myself out there into the world.

I remember having some fear about it, but then I thought of all that Dr. King faced and had to deal with in his life. I remember that being the inspiration for me to get beyond my own fears, which seemed so insignificant in comparison, and to hit the “publish” button on this blog.

In the years since, I have been blessed to have produced written work that has been published in over 40 countries throughout the world. I have been blessed that this blog has had posts distributed in shared globally as well. I have been invited to write my own blogs for several websites and to contribute news stories on a variety of subjects.

In the years since, I have been fortunate to write about important issues such as: Hurricane Sandy, corporate mergers, the GMO debate, environmental issues, factors impacting our food supply, the Flint water disaster, the refugee crisis, the war in Syria, and to raise awareness of diseases such as Scleroderma.

In the years since, I have been blessed to write about the plight of the honeybee, the Clean Air legislation, and issues facing veterans of foreign wars. In addition, I have been fortunate and humbled to contribute work to major websites and to cover my favorite sports teams and topics facing the sports that I love to watch and write about, which has been very fun to undertake.

In the years since, I have published articles in the Catholic media area which have inspired and encouraged others. I have also shared my creative work in publishing poems to this blog, a major poetry site, and in publishing a collection of poems on Amazon which is entitled The Promise of Tomorrow.

I never thought it could be as successful as it has been, but my leap and my belief in myself has taken me to places I never expected. I only dreamed of having some of this come true, and I am honored and humbled that it has taken me down the roads that it has in the last four years.

I will continue to work to share with you, the audience, stories that inspire and provide you hope. I will continue to work to help others to embrace the Christian ideals of love for one another, and still fervently believe that we all can live together in peace.

I will continue to work to preserve the legacy of Dr. King, so that one day, his dream for America can be realized. Thank you all for your tireless support and I hope this story inspires you to make a difference in your neighborhoods and your communities. May God bless you.

by Frank Maduri

Sears Sells Craftsman to Stanley Black & Decker

In a follow up to a recent story on the overall business structure of Sears, the company was in the headlines again on Thursday. The news of the official announcement of the sale of the Craftsman brand was made today to Stanley Black & Decker for an estimated $900 million.

I had reported weeks ago that this move was certainly possible and that Black & Decker was probably the best suitor for such a transaction. The sale of this iconic American brand of tools provides Sears with an infusion of capital at a time that it desperately needs cash. The company, as I wrote last week, needs about a billion dollars to stay in operation through 2017, some estimates have it as more like $1.5 or $1.6 billion which means that Sears has some more credit line borrowing to secure.

The detractors have been quick to jump into the discussion today and make projections that Sears will be in bankruptcy proceedings before the end of the year. In fact, this question was posed to the Stanley Black & Decker executives during the announcement of the Craftsman deal. They acknowledged that if Sears is in bankruptcy proceedings that will have a detrimental effect on the Craftsman purchase being fully completed.

In related news, Stanley Black & Decker also announced that they were planning to open a new factory at a site yet to be determined to manufacture the Craftsman products in America. The new factory would employ around 3,000 and would return an iconic American brand to being “made in the USA” after being made overseas for many years in the current scenario with Sears.

The potential bankruptcy of Sears is an added issue when consideration is given to the fact that those stores are the primary channel for sales of Craftsman tools and other products. The Stanley Black & Decker side explained that they plan on marketing Craftsman in many new channels and to distribute to new retail partners (Home Depot and Lowes jump to mind) to offset the loss of business from Sears in the short term.

Sears gains the injection of cash it needs but it sacrifices the sales revenue it would receive if they owned the brand, it is a real “catch 22” scenario for companies, who like Sears, also own the rights to other very recognizable brands. The retailer gets to the point in their life cycle where some hard decisions need to be made to save a sinking ship.

The announcement from Sears also came with a side note regarding some of their Kmart branded stores. Sears will be closing 41 of their store locations as well as 109 Kmart store locations will be shuttered. The company did not disclose how many jobs would be impacted by the closings, but most of them are part time positions which the company is still concerned about in their release today. The company acknowledged that the stores were underperforming for a long time but that they essentially kept them open to keep local jobs in those communities intact for as long as possible.

This news comes on the heels of Macy’s announcement yesterday of store closings and layoffs of thousands of employees. It is a sad time for some iconic American brands. The sale of the Craftsman brand was something I wrote about weeks ago as well as the potential sale of Kenmore and Die Hard, but Craftsman was always viewed by industry experts to be the most important of those three Sears brands.

The question then becomes: without Craftsman, is Sears really viable? The answer sadly is no, and the outlook for their survival past 2017 is pretty grim. The Sears stock did jump 5% today but they and many of their competitors are being devoured by Amazon. The terrain has changed and Sears may not be a part of it any longer.

The silver lining in this mess is that Craftsman products will live on and will be made in America in the years to come.

by Frank Maduri

The Year in Review 2016

The calendar has flipped and 2016 is now over, with a New Year ahead I always reflect on the achievements of the past year with a focus on the present and how I can continue to improve in all aspects of my life.

I am incredibly grateful for the support and encouragement provided by my readers and for your continued committed and dedicated time in reading as well as sharing my work with others. I am truly blessed and completely humbled and honored to have reached some new audiences in different parts of the world.

I have been recognized for my work in the area of sports writing, news writing, and for my work in Catholic media. My contributions have been well received and well circulated, for which I am very grateful.

This past year also marked the publication of a collection of my poetry on Amazon. I am still awestruck by the support and the kind feedback that collection of creative work has garnered.

Last year, on Frank’s Forum I put together a Year In Review and it was really successful in connecting with new readers and committed readers of my writing work as well. I have reprised this concept for 2016 but with a format change to highlight the months to make it easier to follow.

January
The start of 2016 brought with it the first of many (which I am so completely blessed) well received articles for the Catholic media. This piece, on Our Lady Untier of Knots was shared over 2,000 times between Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and other social media sites:
http://www.catholic365.com/article/3323/our-lady-untier-of-knots-a-personal-reflection.html

The month of January also brought with it a continuation of my quest to raise awareness on GMOs in food products with this piece about Campbell’s Soup:

Know If It Is GMO: Campbell Soup Label Disclosure

In staying with the theme of environmental issues, this article was very important to me personally – it was produced for Medium about the Flint, Michigan contaminated drinking water tragedy:
https://medium.com/@FMaduri/tragic-decision-flint-drinking-water-disaster-ac5f2e485cdf#.me52jlwy0

February

It is generally a shorter month and one where I was working on many projects in the creative writing area while producing some news writing less frequently.

This article about Super Bowl 50 made it as a front page featured story for Sportsblog.com which has tens of thousands of writers submitting content to the site, so I was incredibly honored that this was selected and distributed globally via Google News:
http://fjmaduri.sportsblog.com/posts/12659956/super-bowl-50–manning–cam—-the-cult-of-personality.html
This article for Medium continued the environmental awareness work that is important to me – it was a piece on the level of plastic pollution and what that means for our ecosystem:
https://medium.com/@FMaduri/plastic-pollution-projections-world-economic-forum-report-7270ec6d0539#.7m3fr1pti

March

I know that many of my devoted readers have read in the past that my poetry is the most passionate work that I do, I am very connected to my poetry and it is very important to me. That being stated, this poem was shared over 750 times via social media platforms:
http://www.catholic365.com/article/3752/poetry-battlefield.html

This sports business article on the new stadium process for the Tampa Bay Rays made it into international distribution to multiple countries through Google News and was so well read that I earned an award from the site for the MLB division which was a great honor and achievement:
http://fjmaduri.sportsblog.com/posts/14699523/tampa-bay-rays–the-new-stadium-quest.html

My push for continued awareness of the GMO issues with our food supply was the topic for this article:

Senate Rejects Anti-GMO Food Labeling Bill

April

One of the most well received poems I have ever been blessed to write:
https://allpoetry.com/poem/12422884–Refugee–by-Frank-J.-Maduri

An important change to rules regarding cable television and providing choices to the consumer:

Cable Unboxed – President Obama & Consumer Choice

May

The article below was one that is close to my heart and that I heard from many readers via email how it resonated with them:
http://www.catholic365.com/article/4320/remaining-open-to-the-holy-spirit.html

A big news story in the GMO debate regarding an industry report and the reaction it caused:

Tainted: Academies of Science GMO Report

June

I have had success in writing articles about mergers and acquisitions and that continued in 2016:

Mega Makeover: Mondelez / Hershey Merger Proposal

This article for Medium was about the major changes Applebee’s made to their restaurants:
https://medium.com/@FMaduri/big-gamble-applebees-bets-on-menu-reboot-f4ebd7cd08c5#.f2bn0wo64

This article on the NHL expansion to Las Vegas was very well regarded which I am grateful and humbled by:
http://fjmaduri.sportsblog.com/posts/20362375/follow-up–big-gamble–nhl-expands-to-las-vegas.html

July

This article for Medium was on the collapse of the honeybee colonies which is a huge issue in our environment and for our society:
https://medium.com/@FMaduri/colony-collapse-disorder-honeybees-pesticides-1d3c1d1b8769#.41fk1dhzz

This article was very personal to me and it was an honor to produce:
http://www.catholic365.com/article/4783/the-jericho-road-moment.html

August

This was a huge news story – the EpiPen price increase:
https://medium.com/@FMaduri/extreme-need-extreme-greed-big-pharma-the-epipen-price-gauging-debacle-dc43f2c8fa25#.2csqm9c3c

This piece for my blog was a very important one that I gained some very insightful feedback and was circulated to a variety of veterans groups about the military veteran suicide rate:

Twenty Two Tragedies A Day: The Veteran Suicide Rate Spike In America

September

Summer turned into Autumn and I was honored to write this piece for Patch on the development of my local Mall and the residents’ concerns:
http://patch.com/new-jersey/longbranch/monmouth-mall-redevelopment-debacle

This piece was also an honor and a blessing for me to produce and it was also distributed globally which was a huge blessing for me:
http://www.catholic365.com/article/5207/reflections-on-the-passion–victory-and-salvation.html

October

The month of October came with the news that Sears was rapidly failing. My article on that iconic American retailer was met with some very compelling interactions with readers about the state of the future of retail shopping:

The Inevitable Demise of An American Icon: Sears

I am very fortunate to have readers who are so loyal and they have provided me feedback in the past that they enjoy the “roundup” type sports articles – so I included this NFL article of that format which was well received and for which I am grateful:
http://fjmaduri.sportsblog.com/posts/27016064/nfl-roundup—–four-weeks-into-2016-season.html

November

This article is on a topic that I feel is going to be integral to our future – water being traded as a commodity:

The Commodification of Water

Over the course of the past few years I have covered the issues facing the San Diego Chargers and their future in that city as well as in the NFL’s race to put a team in Los Angeles. This article was particularly well regarded by others in the sports media:
http://fjmaduri.sportsblog.com/posts/29049372/follow-up–san-diego-chargers-ballot-initiative-for-stadium-funds-fails.html

This article was shared close to 2,000 times across various social media platforms and I am blessed to have my name associated with it:
http://www.catholic365.com/article/5542/the-power-of-prayer-the-holy-rosary-of-the-blessed-virgin-mary.html

December

I was honored to join the website community, Varsity Views, which is owned by USA Today, to produce sports content for their site. This piece did really well and was selected as an editor’s choice:
https://www.varsityviews.com/community/frankjmaduri/charged-up-the-nfl-and-l-a-the-saga-continues/c/58470c9c21c3640400ab6024?bust=y5i

This piece was especially well regarded and was an inspiring story to produce:
http://www.catholic365.com/article/5645/our-lady-of-kibeho–marian-apparitions-in-rwanda–the-chaplet-of-the-seven-sorrows-of-mary.html

Thank you all for your continued support in 2016 and I look forward to continuing to bring forth content in 2017 that will inspire and uplift those in the audience. Happy New Year!