Boston Globe Item on WERS LMA Proposal

[Garrett Wollman]

<<On Sun, 9 Apr 2006 16:14:37 -0400, "R Trovato" <xtrovato@yahoo.com> said:

> Aren't the stockholders the ones who are deciding to sell it?

Trusts of this sort don't have stockholders.  They have trustees, who
are the people responsible for managing the trust's affairs, and they
have beneficiaries, who are the people who are entitled receive the
trust's assets when it is dissolved.  The trustees have an obligation
to manage the trust for the benefit of the beneficiaries, but the
exact purpose of the trust, and circumstances in which it may be
dissolved, are set out in the legal documents which created it.  Every
situation is different.

Trusts have limited lifetimes; often they are linked to some life
event for a descendant of the grantor.  If you own shares in a
Fidelity mutual fund, you're dealing with a trust which will expire
upon the death of either Abigail Johnson or her father, Ned, should
she predecease him.  My understanding was that the Jones Trust was set
to expire in 99 years (starting, it appears, in 1979, so that would be
2078), or if the classical format were to become uneconomical to
operate.  Only a look at the original documents can provide the exact
answers.  Many family-owned companies are structured this way as a
means of estate planning.

Given when it was created, I think the Declaration of Trust should be
in the FCC's files as a matter of public record.  However, the FCC's
electronic files only go back a few years, so one would have to visit
The Portals in person and examine the microfiche for the official
record from when the ownership of the station was restructured.  It's
possible that a copy may be in the station's Public Inspection File.

-GAWollman