CPI Meeting, July 8

CPI Corp., a Missouri-based photography-services concern, hosts its shareholders meeting one week from today.

Its largest shareholder is Ramius LLC, which owns 23% of the equity and controls one board seat.

CPI's chairman, David Meyer, through his own investment firm, Knightspoint Partners, controls 1.5%, and two board seats.

A story in the St Louis Business Journal yesterday offers a scorecard.

The company is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (CPY). As you can see above, ithas a very dramatic looking price chart. Until the credit crunch of last autumn it was trading in a range between $14 and $18. About the time Lehman Bros declared bankruptcy in mid-September, CPI's price began a serious slide that took it down to $6. Then in mid October it recovered a good deal of that ground, which it lost again by the end of the month.

All that was but a bag-of-shells compared to the collapse of November, though. Through late Novemver and early December it was trading below $2.

the story since then has been one of recovery. So why the proxy fight? We'll talk Sunday.