Blucora is facing another proxy challenge with the insurgents claiming the Blucora broad lacks a wide range of necessary experience. Engine Capital has nominated three individuals to the board claiming Blucora, which owns TaxAct and Avantax, has bloated overhead and does not perform as it should in its tax preparation and wealth management businesses.Engine said in an SEC Filing this week that TaxAct and Avantax “are not fulfilling their potential.”
The effort appears to differ from the one conducted by Ancora Holdings in last year’s challenge to the company’s board nominees. Ancora wanted to sell TaxAct, claiming it had no relationship to the wealth management busiess.
Engine, which said the current stock low was below the level during the Ancora challenge, said poor performance stemmed from the board’s lack of experience in key areas.
It labeled the board’s experience insufficient in the following: *“Wealth management experience and a lack of understanding of the needs of the average Avantax financial professional”; *Consumer finance; *Mergers and acquisitions. * Turnaround, transformation and value creation; and * Lacked “shareholder input and ownership perspectives”.
Engine revealed it privately nominated a four-person slate that include one of its principal. It said it hoped the private approach would lend itself to a more amicable resolution and a public debate.
“Blucora accused us of providing an inaccurate response to one question on its onerous 66-page director candidate questionnaire and consequently moved to unilaterally invalidate our nomination of an Engine principal,” Engine said it proxy filing.
Engine said it did not let its candidates be interviewed by the Board Nominating and Governance Committee. “The Board has already tipped its hand by questioning the validity of our nominations based on frivolous technicalities, leading us to not view interview requests as sincere,” the firm continued.
