Relational Investors, an investment group that has claimed a couple of CEO scalps, plans to sharply cut its holdings in Intuit where it has been very quiet. The firm has informed Intuit that it will sell up to 5,562,500 shares of stock, almost 50 percent of its holdings as reported to the SEC on June 21. Relational expressed its confidence in Intuit and its future.
The stock block being considered for sale has a value of about $263 million at Friday's closing price. Relational held 11.1 million shares of Intuit's common stock on June 21.
Relational purchased its shares two years ago and forced its way onto the board by threatening a proxy fight. One of the firm's partners, David H. Batchelder, has served as an Intuit board member since late in 2009. Relational's other partner, Ralph Whitworth, is considered an expert in corporate governance and has reportedly gone after companies that he considers are being dominated by their CEOs and not performing well.
The firm has not disclosed the reason for the original investment in Intuit, and its filing with the SEC, outside of complimenting Intuit, said only that it was seeking to diversity its holdings. Other than mentioning two years ago that Relational and Intuit had common goals, Intuit CEO Brad Smith has not mentioned the investment group and any impact it has had has not been made public.
Bob Scott has provided information to the tax and accounting community since 1991, first as technology editor of Accounting Today, and from 1997 through 2009 as editor of its sister publication, Accounting Technology. He is known throughout the industry for his depth of knowledge and for his high journalistic standards. Scott has made frequent appearances as a speaker, moderator and panelist and events serving tax and accounting professionals. He has a strong background in computer journalism as an editor with two former trade publications, Computer+Software News and MIS Week and spent several years with weekly and daily newspapers in Morris County New Jersey prior to that. A graduate of Indiana University with a degree in journalism, Bob is a native of Madison, Ind