Boardroom intrigue
Super Micro threatened with Nasdaq de-listing
Knives falls fast. Last night Super Micro was notified that it faces Nasdaq de-listing if it does not submit a “compliance plan.” That should be easy, they can just tack it on to the earnings report that they must be furiously working on with their brand new auditor…
Super Micro Shares Plummet as Nasdaq Delisting Looms
Is Zeta Global using weaselly language to play up its revenue retention expectations?
Lauren Balik has been looking into digital media company Zeta Global lately with posts about their election data and irregularities surrounding their “AI” play.
Now she’s back with an overview of how the company uses weaselly language “in order to cook revenue guidance.” She makes a very good case that the company is creatively downplaying political ad spending during an election year (because political ads are inherently cyclical revenue) and portraying it as general ad spending to juice its net revenue retention numbers.
The company is using the phrase “political candidate revenue” as a way of “rolling up advocacy revenue (PACs, special interests groups, anything not directly a politician’s campaign itself, etc.) into the ‘non-political’ line in their guidance.”
Medium - Lauren Balik How Zeta Global (NYSE: ZETA) Cooks Revenue Guidance
A boardroom shakeup is the latest battle in the war between Klarna co-founders
Buy now, pay later company Klarna was founded nearly twenty years ago by Victor Jacobsson and Sebastian Siemiatkowski. A decade ago, that partnership presumably ended when Jacobsson left the company. According to the Financial Times, he has been a “thorn in the side of Siemiatkowski ever since.”
Now one of Jacobsson’s key allies, Mikael Walther, has been removed from the board by a shareholder vote of over 87%. In a statement, Walther had this to say: “A majority of those present at the general meeting have decided that I shall leave the board. As a result, there will be one fewer independent voice in the boardroom.”
Independent voices or not, this has apparently cemented CEO Siemiatkowski’s control of the board as it prepares for an IPO.
Financial Times: Klarna board decides to oust co-founder’s key ally in latest power tussle Wall Street Journal: Klarna Shareholders Vote to Remove Mikael Walther From Board
