Box: Private Equity firm Starboard Value takes more control
Most users of cloud content management software provider Box love the product. Still, investors seem to be consistently disappointed. Starboard Value, an activist private equity firm, sees opportunity in the disparity, calling the company’s shares undervalued. Last year they bought up 7.6 percent of Box’s stock. That’s enough to have an influence over how CEO Aaron Levie runs the company.
Today, according in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Box and Starboard Capital mutually agreed to add three new members to Box’s board of directors and to force the resignation/retirement of three others — Box co-founder Dylan Smith (he will keep his role as Box’s CFO,) long-time Box investor Rory O’Driscoll, and Josh Stein, who has been on the board for 14 years and will retire.
Two new directors will be joining Box’s board of directors immediately. They include Jack Lazar, whose credentials include being chief financial officer at GoPro. A second board member who is mutually agreed upon by Box and Starboard will also be joining soon. Starboard will select a third board member who will be appointed at Box’s shareholders annual meeting in June.
