Matt Levine
Bloomberg, 17 February 2017
In 2013, tropical-fruit tycoon David Murdock, who was the chairman, chief executive officer and biggest shareholder of Dole Food Co., took it private for $13.50 a share. A lot of shareholders felt that that price was way too low, and that Murdock had sandbagged the shareholders by driving down the value of the company so he could buy it cheaply for himself. So they sued, and they won. In 2015, the Delaware Chancery Court ordered Murdock to pay shareholders another $2.74 a share, plus interest. There was a class action on behalf of shareholders, covering 36,793,758 shares, and after the court ruled in their favor, the class lawyers informed the shareholders and asked them to submit a form to claim their $2.74 a share.
Comment: Who sold all the fake shares? Who paid the dividend to shareholders?
