This article is more than 1 year old

Violin investor: Broken-stringed firm has had five buyout offers

Report: Sez bolshy investor pushing for sale

Violin Memory, the troubled top dog in the all-flash array market, has received up to five buy-the-company offers, according to an activist investor pushing for a sale.

Gregory Taxin is president of the Clinton Group which is prodding Violin to shop itself after its disappointing IPO and firing of CEO Don Basile.

Media outlet Bloomberg reports Taxin as saying at an Activist Investor Conference that five informal inquiries have been received. Violin’s market capitalisation is $295m and shares jumped seven per cent in value to $.58 over night on the news - the September 2013 IPO price was $9.00 which is why investors are angry.

Taxin has an interest in bugging up takeover interest because the Clinton Group will be able to sell its shares at a higher profit if there is a contest to take over the broken-stringed Violin Memory.

Violin is now run by interim CEO Howard Bain, who is also board chairman and pulled the trigger on Basile’s ousting. There is no word of a new CEO, although sources had suggested one would be appointed this month. If the company is shopping itself then no new CEO would be interested in running the company of course. Bain could steer the Violin ship into a new berth and everyone would be happy - or relieved.

We’ve asked Violin about this but don’t expect it to comment. If it does we’ll let you know. ®

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like