Aaron Katsman
IsraelNewsletter.com
The Israel financial daily Globes is reporting that email animation company Incredimail (MAIL) wants to reprice options for 5 senior managers. The company which works in the space of email animation, clearly has a problem distinguishing between reality and fiction. The stock is down more than 40% YTD, there was a management shakeup, issues with Google (GOOG), and senior management wants to reprice their options? I don’t know, are they planning to sell the company for some kind of premium and attempt to make a boatload of money on the transaction, while all investors will see is a slightly lower tax loss?
According to the article: “The options are held by Incredimail CEO and director Ofer Adler, who is the company’s largest shareholder, president Yaron Adler, the company’s second-largest shareholder, chairwoman Tamar Gottlieb, and directors Yair Zadik and Gittit Guberman.”
I would understand if the company wanted to reprice employee stock options (ESOP) as they would want to retain their employees, but senior management? My hunch is that most investors wouldn’t mind if senior management was let go. Why should these executives profit when investors have seen tremendous losses? Why should 2 directors and the chairwoman get their options repriced? (Continue »)
Aaron Katsman
www.IsraelNewsletter.com
What is going on at Incredimail(MAIL)? the last time we heard from the company was to
reassure investors that they had worked out their problems with Google(GOOG), and that they were buying back stock. Well that was 2 weeks ago. In internet time 2 weeks is a lifetime.
Today the company announced a change at CEO. Yaron Adler is stepping down and being replaced by his brother Ofer, co-founder and current Chief Product Officer.
Tami Gottlieb, Chairperson of the Company’s board of directors, commented: “We are grateful to Yaron for his vision, leadership, enthusiasm and determination, bringing together with Ofer the Company so far. We accept Yaron’s wish to allocate more time to other endeavors, resulting in a lesser involvement in the Company’s operations, and are thankful for his continued availability and advice, which we believe will contribute to the Company’s future growth and success.”
The whole thing sounds weird, especially the timing of the recent events. We interviewed Yaron a few months ago, and actually had a conference call with him 2 weeks ago, and he gave no indication whatsoever that he wanted to “allocate more time to other endeavors.”
The fact is that in our conference call, absolutely no new information was shed about the Google issue. The call was just a rehash of the press release. While we had our differences about whether the company should be an acquirer or an acquiree, we really liked Yaron and respected his creative vision, and we wish him well.
Unfortunately for investors the total lack of transparency is shocking. This is a publicly traded company, not some mickey mouse operation. We at Israelnewsletter.com are calling for the company to come clean about the whole Google issue, as well as the sudden change in management.
Disclosure: Author’s has no position in any stock mentioned as of 2/5/08.
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Aaron Katsman is Managing Editor of the Israel Opportunity Investor newsletter. He is lead portfolio manager for the Israel Growth Portfolio and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. For more information, go to www.israelnewsletter.com or call 1-888-327-6179, or email aaron@profile-financial.com.
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Katsman also has the scoop on Israeli Internet stock, Incredimail (Nasdaq: MAIL), and its Web 2.0 travails with Google.
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