Monday, March 16, 2009

Settlement agreement at Agilysys

Ramius has settled its dispute with issuer Agilysys, an IT contractor for companies in the retail and hospitality markets.

Ramius owns approximately 13% of Agilysys' shares, and has expressed its unhappiness with a "misguided, poorly executed acquisition strategy."

A shareholders meeting, scheduled for March 26, will now be shorn of drama.

It appears that Agilysys had to throw two of their own overboard. Directors Charles Christ and Eileen Rudden have resigned. They'll be replaced by two of Ramius' nominees, John Mutch and Steve Tepedino.

Here's some bio on the two new directors, from the settlement announcement:

Mutch (age 52) is the founder and a Managing Partner of MV Advisors, LLC, a firm that provides focused investment and strategic guidance to small- and mid-cap technology companies. In March 2003, Mutch was appointed to the Board of Directors of Peregrine Systems Inc. (“Peregrine”), a global enterprise software provider, to assist Peregrine and its management in development of a plan of reorganization, which ultimately led to Peregrine’s emergence from bankruptcy. Mutch served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Peregrine from August 2003 to December 2005 through its acquisition by Hewlett-Packard. Mutch is currently a director of Edgar Online, Inc., Adaptec, Inc. and Aspyra, Inc.

Tepedino (age 47) is a co-founder of Channel Savvy LLC, a management consulting firm specializing in technology channels, where he has served as President and Chief Executive officer since May 2006. Additionally, since that time Tepedino served as a Member of JET Creative LLC, a management consulting company specializing in the information technology industry. From 1984 to 2006, Tepedino worked in various positions at Avnet, Inc., a Fortune 500 company focused on global technology distribution.


As part of the settlementk, too, the company has disbanded its special committee formed to oversee its "strategic alternatives." If or when it creates a new such committee, one of the two new Ramius Directors will be a member.

1 comment:

Christopher said...

Ruth,

Thanks. It's always good to know somebody is reading.