Starboard Cuts Stake in Quantum Corp (QTM), Tiger Global Jettisons Majority of Pure Storage Inc. (PSTG) Holding, Plus 2 Other Moves

We’ll wrap up this article by discussing the ongoing proxy fight between Willem Mesdag’s Red Mountain Capital Partners LLC and iRobot Corporation (NASDAQ:IRBT). According to a fresh proxy statement, Mr. Mesdag’s investment firm, which owns 1.78 million shares or a 6.15% stake in the robotics company, is seeking support for the election of its director nominees, Mr. Mesdag and Lawrence S. Peiros, at the company’s upcoming annual meeting of shareholders. Red Mountain disclosed a 5.1% position in the company last April, and released a set of proposals that it believed would create shareholder value. Those proposals included: focusing exclusively on the company’s Home Robots business, which would involve the sale of the Defense and Security business and discontinuation of the Remote Presence business; optimizing the capital structure of the core business (i.e. Home Robots); and updating corporate governance policies, among other things. Red Mountain sought the appointment of the aforementioned nominees as part of a settlement proposal, but the robotics manufacturer did not accept it, instead focusing on implementing some of those value-enhancing proposals. Earlier this week, iRobot Corporation (NASDAQ:IRBT) announced that it had sold its Defense and Security business to Arlington Capital Partners for a consideration of up to $45 million.

In the aforementioned proxy statement, Red Mountain urges the shareholders of the robotics company to assist the investment firm in receiving shareholder representation on iRobot’s Board of Directors, saying that Mr. Mesdag and his team “are deeply concerned with the prolonged underperformance of iRobot’s share price”. Moreover, the freshly-submitted SEC filing also says that “Red Mountain has already been a catalyst for positive change at iRobot, but there is much more to be done”. A total of 11 hedge funds in our system had long positions in the company at the end of December and held 9% of its outstanding shares. Steven Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management acquired a new stake of 325,600 shares in iRobot Corporation (NASDAQ:IRBT) during the final quarter of 2015.

Disclosure: None