By Svea Herbst-Bayliss
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Masimo Corp shareholders elected both director candidates proposed by veteran activist investor Quentin Koffey’s hedge fund Politan Capital Management, in one of the most contentious boardroom battles of the year.
Investors took the highly unusual step of ousting the company’s CEO – Joe Kiani who founded Masimo in 1989 – from the board while also handing an additional two seats to Politan which already won two seats in 2023, the company said on Thursday.
Bill Jellison and Darlene Solomon were elected to the board of the medical devices maker known for producing oximeters. Masimo is currently valued at $6 billion after its stock price dropped roughly 60% in the last three years.
Kiani said in the past that he would quit as CEO and sell his shares valued at roughly $500 million if investors replaced him on the board with a Politan nominee. Politan has previously proposed that Kiani could keep his job as CEO and return to the board even if shareholders vote him out.
Politan returned for a second proxy fight this year after having already won two seats, including one for Koffey, at last year’s meeting. But since then, the hedge fund argued that more change is needed.
The biggest proxy advisory firms Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis recommended electing Politan’s nominees, with ISS writing that Kiani “wants to have his cake and eat it too” by enjoying the benefits of being a public company but running it like a private business.
The drama included a raft of lawsuits filed by Masimo and Politan. The shareholder meeting was moved to September from July.
(Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss, editing by Deepa Babington)
