Hello.

I’m pleased to let you know we’ve redesigned our Language of Business web site, now accessible at www.bclob.com

The new site is meant to serve as a business portal: we have included business knowledge resources, web site & book recommendations, and, of course, background on my BC courses and our TV, radio and print media outreach.

Finally, please register on the site, so as new content is posted, you’ll receive an email from us.

A huge thanks to my colleagues inside and outside of BC who did the programming, offered suggestions and have supported this overall 2+ year effort.  To say it’s a team efforts would be the understatement of the decade! :-)

Sincerely,

Greg Stoller

Today, the Boston Globe reports that the offer by ousted Market Basket CEO Arthur T is the "only bid left on the table," with Boston.com reporting it's "at or above [the] market value of the chain when it is operating normally." 

This is a wise negotiations strategy by the former CEO.

a) Discounts for non-marketability: Most shares in a privately held corporation are purchased at a discount, to compensate the buyer for the non-convertablity of the equity.  After all, how valuable would these shares be outside of the family's coffers, especially with decades of in-fighting?

b) Market Value: Despite the acrimonious family history, by making an offer at or above market value, Arthur T. is trying to do the right thing by the Board, by the company and even his estranged relatives.

c) Debt considerations: 50% isn't control unless there's a number after the decimal place.  50.5% will get him back the keys, and re-install him as CEO, but he won't be handicapping the company with extraordinarily high debt service by only seeking 50% of the equity, regardless if he's financing the purchase via a bank loan or through the buyer taking back financing. 

d) Zero asset value to outsiders: Outside of the locations the company owns outright or its long term leases, the stores have no value unless a retailing business is looking to acquire some, or all, of the 71 regional locations at one time. This is risky as it's not a national play and in the grocery space, a high-volume, low margin business model. 

e) Time is of the essence: For any stores Market Basket rents or has mortgages on, unless they resume normal operations soon, they’ll begin defaulting on lease & loan payments, making a bad situation exponentially worse, not to mention missing vendor or wage payments.

f) Management does matter: If you never paid attention during Organizational Behavior classes, take note now!  This unfortunate saga does have a silver lining in reminding all of us that strong leadership, effective management, and a boss who gets to know his / her employees can motivate people at all levels to do their best work. 

Conventional wisdom says “think global but act local.”  But with so much technological interconnectivity, is there really such a thing as a local market anymore?  We’ll literally go all over the world examining these local markets, from Palestine to Singapore.

The full 30-minute episode is available below, featuring Derek Wong, Marie Hladikova, Titus Yong and Ziad Anabtawi.  Click on their names below for the individual interview segments.  The non YouTube version of the episode is available here. 

If you buy or sell a lot of stuff from one particular country, should you eventually purchase property there?  People from China—the world’s factory where we buy so many of our products—are actively purchasing US property, and paying cash.  Derek Wong is helping make this happen as a US real estate broker.  Here's his company's web site. 

Marie Hladikova came to the US as an au pair from the Czech Republic well over a decade ago…and never left.  Along this non-traditional path, she taught herself English, and put herself through college and law school, passing the bar exam on the first try.  Think you could pull off the same feat?  Click here for her LinkedIn profile. 

Creativity, Collaboration, Character Strengths.  Sounds like a typical, corporate boardroom mission statement, doesn’t it?  Try asking Titus Yong that question, and you may be surprised by his answer.  His LinkedIn profile is here. 

Pioneer and olive oil aren’t often used in the same sentence.  But don’t tell that to Ziad Anabtawi in Nablus, Palestine.  It’s part of his company’s mission statement.  You can learn more about Ziad on LinkedIn here. 

Congrats to full time MBA grad Ryan Traeger with his company Achvr.  Nice press on WCVB Channel 5's TV show Chronicle. See clip here on Boston-based "happiness apps."

Ryan and his company were featured on the Language of Business back in January through this clip and were formerly part of the MBA Business Plan course as an entrepreneur, post graduation. 

What return is good enough to justify a sports sponsorship deal? How about naming an entire stadium?  Jay Fee knows the answer to both of these questions, and many more. Watch his interview on the Language of Business, coming up in August.

Jay Fee has been actively engaged in the Sports Industry in a variety of capacities for almost twenty years as a corporate attorney, certified NHL and MLB player agent and Adjunct Professor for sports law.  Jay is a Partner at the law firm of Nelson Mullins Riley and Scarborough LLP where he chairs his firm's Sports Industry Practice Group comprised of several attorneys with experience in a variety of legal disciplines, including corporate, employment, tax, litigation, real estate, intellectual property, telecommunications, media and government relations.  Jay will discuss corporate sponsorships and business transactions in the sports industry and you can find his LinkedIn profile here.

We sent a film crew down to NYC to meet Dave Mingey, whom we interviewed on the business of sports, for our next episode of the Language of Business, airing in August.

Dave is the President & Founding Partner at GlideSlope, which is a team of management advisors that focus solely on the business of global sport. Through neutral, objective counsel, GlideSlope helps its clients seize opportunity for growth, address challenges and effect change. Here’s his LinkedIn profile.   He discussed merging sports-specific goals with overarching business objectives.  The other 3 guests are profiled below, too.

Picture below reprinted with written permission.

Joe Rosen runs the corporate department of Brown & Rosen LLC, and his practice focuses on mergers and acquisitions, licensing, private financings, contract work, trademarks, company formation and other corporate matters. He is also the head of the baseball division of Orpheus Sports where he represents and advises professional baseball players. Here’s his LinkedIn profile. He’ll discuss athlete representation.

Jay Fee has been actively engaged in the Sports Industry in a variety of capacities for almost twenty years as a corporate attorney, certified NHL and MLB player agent and Adjunct Professor for sports law.  Jay is a Partner at the law firm of Nelson Mullins Riley and Scarborough LLP where he chairs his firm's Sports Industry Practice Group comprised of several attorneys with experience in a variety of legal disciplines, including corporate, employment, tax, litigation, real estate, intellectual property, telecommunications, media and government relations.  Jay will discuss corporate sponsorships and business transactions in the sports industry and you can find his LinkedIn profile here. 

Tom McCarthy is the CEO of Beijing International Group, whose web site is on this link.  Amongst other sporting events he runs, Tom’s firm is a company of some 200 full- and part-time employees in 13 cities, which markets the China Tennis Grand Prix Mercedes Benz Cup and its associated junior program.  He’ll discuss moving to Asia in 1987 and building his company from scratch.

Dave Mingey is the President & Founding Partner at GlideSlope, which is a team of management advisors that focus solely on the business of global sport. Through neutral, objective counsel, GlideSlope helps its clients seize opportunity for growth, address challenges and effect change. Here’s his LinkedIn profile.   He’ll discuss merging sports-specific goals with overarching business objectives.

Thank you to the Boston Business Journal for publishing my latest Op Ed piece. Working or studying overseas has multiple benefits: Not only can you learn different business systems, which can then be immediately compared and contrasted with your own training, but you’re also regularly bombarded with new ideas. The published version is below and here's the full text version in PDF format.

Conventional wisdom says “think global but act local.” But with so much technological interconnectivity, is there really such a thing as a local market anymore? We’ll literally go all over the world examining these local markets, from Palestine to Singapore, on the next Language of Business!  (Future episodes will cover the Business of Sports and Logos / Branding).

My four guests will be Derek Wong, Marie Hladikova, Titus Yong and Ziad Anabtawi.

Derek Wong, President of V&E Realty, whose web site is here.
http://verealtyinc.com/

Marie Hladikova, Export Control Director at Boston University, and here's
her LinkedIn profile.  http://www.linkedin.com/in/mariehladikova

Titus Yong, Edupreneur & Director @ Ingenio. Here's his LinkedIn profile.
http://sg.linkedin.com/in/titusyong

Ziad Anabtawi, Chairmand and CEO of the Anabtawi Group, and here's his
write-up on LinkedIn.
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ziad-anabtawi/3a/462/946

Tune in tonight at 8 pm EST to hear the show.  The Radio Entrepreneurs link is here, and on this link you can hear a 3-minute preview of tonight's broadcast.

Enjoy the long weekend and Happy 4th of July.

Radio Entrepreneurs has moved to an internet platform, as they expand nationally. You can listen to them here.

They will start broadcasting all episodes of the Language of Business TV Show beginning next Thursday, at 8:00 pm EST.

Check out the 30-second promo we're using to advertise the debut on their radio network, featuring excerpts from past interviews with Furqan Nazeeri ("Capitalizing on Business Success"), Michael Dreitzer ("Bold Business Moves"), and Jody Mendoza ("Operational Planning").