Without a doubt, corporate philanthropy is a darn good thing. The more companies give back to their communities, the better off we all are. In an "out of the box" speech today, BCE Inc. CEO Michael Sabia expounded on this theme and its importance to Canada's largest company. To send home the message, BCE will increase its community investment spending by 40% to $26 million by 2007 from $19 million this year.
If you do the math, however, this represents a whopping 0.13% of BCE's $19.1-billion of revenue in 2003.
The strange thing about Sabia's speech was it was delivered to the Economic Club of Toronto. I would have expected more of a corporate strategic pitch - something along the lines that IP will change everything in the telecom business. Instead, it came across as a political speech. If i was a conspiry theorist, I'd be thinking Sabia was angling for a new position with Paul Martin's Liberal government in Ottawa. After all, he's a seasoned civil servant who has enjoyed nice success in the private sector.
Another consideration is the restructuring done by Sabia at BCE over the past three years - i.e. getting rid of non-core businesses and redundant employees - has been relatively easy. What he faces going forward is much more challenging - growing the business. If Sabia wants to bail out of the corporate world as a hero, now might be a good time.

Nortel Networks did a wonderful job last putting the heads of ex-CEO Frank Dunn and ex-CFO Doug Beatty on a platter for the Securities and Exchange Commission. With Dunn and Beatty accused of cooking the books, the spotlight is being turned on Dunn's predecessor, John Roth, and what role he played in Nortel's accounting "troubles". If the company was fiddling with its revenue recognition practices at the height of the telecom book in 1999 and 2000, one has to ask if Roth was aware of what was going down. May he did, maybe he didn't but you can be sure the SEC is going to try to find out.
For a detailed look at what the SEC could/may do, read today's story in the National Post.
One of the reasons Roth is seen as a target is the $135-million of stock options he exercised in 2000. It needs to be stressed Roth did nothing wrong other than exhibit excellent timing. But while most Canadians saw the value of their retirement savings plans shrink as Nortel shares crumbled, Roth has retired to his estate in Caledon, Ont.
Speaking of estates, why is that Nortel CEOs feel the need to live in places the rest of us can only dream about? Frank Dunn - in probably one of the worse PR decisions in corporate history - is building a 15K square foot monster home in suburban Toronto.