(Reuters) – Velodyne Lidar’s founder and largest shareholder on Thursday warned that he plans to appoint two administrators to the board subsequent yr amid frustration with the sensor provider’s falling inventory value, excessive government pay, and the board’s failure to focus extra on new analysis.
David Corridor wrote to traders, in a letter seen by Reuters, that the board made “strategic missteps” and that he hopes to switch board chairman Michael Dee and director Christopher Thomas on the 2022 annual assembly.
“I cannot enable Velodyne Lidar to proceed to stagnate beneath present management,” Corridor wrote, including “I intend to appoint two highly-qualified director candidates.”
Corridor who stepped off the board in February after the corporate stripped him of his government chairmanship place, owns roughly 52% of the corporate alongside together with his spouse, Marta Corridor, who serves on the corporate’s seven-member board.
Subsequent yr’s annual assembly date has not been set and traders will be unable to formally nominate director candidates till early February, 2022.
A consultant for the corporate was not instantly out there for remark.
Corridor’s letter and plans mark the newest twist in a boardroom drama that started quickly after the corporate went public with a particular function acquisition firm in 2020. The corporate’s chief government officer Anand Gopalan left the corporate on the finish of July and he has not been changed.
Corridor’s letter accuses the board of “embracing efficiency mediocracy, massive salaries and different egregious compensation practices as an alternative of creating an actionable plan to stem worth destruction”
The corporate’s inventory value has tumbled 59% within the final 52 weeks. The corporate is the main provider of lidar, an acronym for mild detection and ranging, which makes use of laser beams to create a 3D illustration of the surveyed surroundings and is essential for self-driving automobiles, for instance.
(Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss; Modifying by Alistair Bell)