When I was a senior manager in a competitive business, I always...

When I was a senior manager in a competitive business, I always contacted and met with competitors, which surprised them, but it led to good outcomes unrelated to pricing. For instance: helping each other in equipment-failure situations; passing on names of good job applicants who approached either party when that party had no positions vacant; and referring perspective clients to each other where our businesses did not overlap. These were of minor significance.

Of real significance, and mutual advantage, was that I subcontracted to buy idle capacity from two competitors where the cost to them was near-zero, and hence my custom was a meaningful and regular fillip to their profitability. Also, that contact allowed a number of offers to buy or sell out, and the company for whom I worked was acquired by a company from whom I had subcontracted idle capacity, and we had each helped each other to get over equipment failures. Fox having a significant shareholding in KSC facilitates amicable contact, from which this kind of mutual advantage can spring.