There’s a reason Alexandra Posadzki’s book Rogers v. Rogers: The Battle for Control of Canada’s Telecom Empire is the year’s hot business book. Two reasons, in fact.
First, there’s the material: an extraordinarily public falling-out among the heirs of Ted Rogers’ $30-billion telecoms empire. Featuring mean tweets between siblings. Over a fundamental question of direction: who the company’s CEO should be. And a slightly more arcane, but still important, question of governance: is a company better run if most shareholders get ordinary shares while a few get, in effect, magic beans? All of this drama unfolded while Rogers was trying to close a $20-billion merger with Shaw Communications that would test the limits of competition regulation in this country.
The story features cameos from David Peterson, who was Ontario’s premier more than 30 years ago and has since become a key figure in just about every important Toronto story. And John Tory, who was Toronto’s mayor while this story was happening, which is just the damnedest thing, it seems to me, given the role he played in navigating the crisis at the company he helped build. And, I kid you not, Brian Cox, the star of HBO’s Succession. I mean…
Second, there’s what Posadzki has done with the story. She’s a diligent and methodical reporter, one who understands that this story has enough complexity to shake a lot of readers. So she did dozens of interviews and she takes the time to walk readers through it all, beginning with half a century of Rogers family and corporate lore.
