Hard agree, and not just because I'm a spreadsheet nerd. Why are we all here? Isn't it in the service…
Allscripts Caves to Proxy Fight, Nominates HealthCor’s Board Candidates
Allscripts announced this morning that it will nominate a three-member board slate to settle a lawsuit and proxy fight brought by key shareholder HealthCor Partners. HealthCor previously called publicly for the replacement of Allscripts CEO Glen Tullman, sued the company over its plan to nominate its own candidates to replace four board members who quit in April in a management dispute, and had obtained an expedited review of its arguments in a hearing that was scheduled for June 14, the day before the Allscripts shareholder meeting.
The director nominees are:
- Stuart Bascomb, founder of Express Scripts and chairman and CEO of QualSight, which offers managed care refractive surgery
- David Stevens, former chairman and CEO of specialty pharmacy vendor Accredo Health Group
- Randy Thurman, founder of Viasys Healthcare and former CEO of Corning Life Sciences and Rhone-Poulenc Pharmaceuticals
Tullman said in the announcement, “We welcome the addition of Stuart, David, and Randy and believe they will bring new perspectives and additional industry experience to our board. Taken together with the recent additions of Paul Black and Robert Cindrich, the Company will have added five, high-quality, independent directors in just the past few weeks. We believe this is a positive outcome for Allscripts and its stockholders and we look forward to working collaboratively as we continue to implement our strategic initiatives and make the important and necessary investments to deliver a connected community of health for our clients and build value for all of our stockholders.”
HealthCor co-founder Arthur Cohen said, “We are pleased to have reached this amicable resolution with Allscripts, which we believe will serve the best interests of all stockholders. We continue to believe that Allscripts has great products, strong capabilities and a unique installed base of customers. Furthermore, we are confident that Stuart, David, and Randy will make strong additions to the Board, and will work hard to represent all stockholders and assist the Company in seizing the tremendous market opportunity before it.”
Bwahahahaha….can anyone turn themselves into a fly and let us know what these BOD meetings are really gonna be like?
I’m sad that we didn’t get any Mr HISTalk commenrary with this news…
[From Mr. H] Sorry, I’m at work at the hospital and didn’t have much time – I was lucky to steal a couple of minutes to post the news item. But I’m sure I’ll have more to say later. My initial reaction: these members are 100 times better than any that Allscripts has or was likely to get. They have immense experience in starting, running, and selling publicly traded HIT companies. I assume that their next order of business, given their obligation to dance with the one who brought them, is to convince two more board members to vote for firing Glen and position the company for sale. My one-sentence opinion: this is great news for shareholders, uncertain news for customers, and unnerving news for prospects in play that will probably send them into the arms of Cerner or Epic since it’s not clear exactly who’s in charge now.
Unsure how this is great news for shareholders if the end result is clients leaving.
[From Mr. H] If the company sells itself for a price per share that’s higher than the current depressed share price, then shareholders can take their profits and let someone else worry about long-term customer retention. Given HealthCor’s insistence that the company should be sold, I don’t think they were talking about five years down the road.
It is way too late for Allscripts. Leadership has pushed out all the brainpower over the last 2 years. Experienced middle managers have bailed from the company. Q2 numbers are going to be disastrous. The emperor, Glen, has no clothes. His executive team has not served him well insulating him from all bad news over the years.
Time to sell off the pieces.