Departure of Tivo director and former CEO is going to cost…something
This slipped by us last week. But fortunately, Tivo (TIVO) filed an 8-K on Wednesday re-announcing that former CEO Michael Ramsay had left the board of directors on August 30 to become a venture partner at New Enterprise Associates. NEA already has one board member on Tivo’s board, and that apparently was enough.
Ramsay had stepped aside as CEO two years ago at the much-loved but perpetually financially shaky digital video recorder pioneer. But the details of his leaving are a bit, well, thin. In the filing, the company simply notes that it signed a “consulting and transition” agreement with Ramsay and that it expects to ”incur approximately $3 million in non-cash stock-based compensation expense in connection with the agreement.”
But the company didn’t disclose the terms of that agreement as far as we can tell. If someone sees it somewhere, please give us a roadmap.
During the past seven years, Ramsay has sold $8,814,799 worth of Tivo stock and still held 991,442 shares as of August 1.
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Gee, if you guys were possibly any more insightful I might need sunglasses.
Good bye Ramsey, the best thing it could have happened to TiVo. Actually, Fired CEO Ramsey, in the board as a director, was like a sting in the heart of the company.
Ramsey was an insider that, only showed a negative resentfulness and tried to frustrate shareholders by selling his position in TiVo little by little, to make the company look deteriorating. Rogers, the new TiVo CEO brought the company out of a potential bankruptcy. Now, after 2 years, Tivo is a complete new and powerful enterprise competing only with the best in the industry, such moto and cisco and still proving to be the king DVR maker.
With Rogers, TiVo has also entered into the rating industry and it is demonstrating to have developed the best features for that industry as well.
In relation to the advertising industry, Tom Rogers have managed to establish great relationships with advertisers, redefining Tivo as the only set-top-box in the DVR industry that, offers both capabilities: the Time Warping System, as well as, the only advertising platform on a DVR which includes: Interactive advertising, ads-tags, program placements, swivel search, etc..
Advertisers seem to have hated Ramsey, which could have been an obstacle for Tom to further his relationships with more advertisers and MSO triple players. TiVo should have paid $3, 4, or 5 million to Ramsey long time ago to leave the company.
The best thing about Ramsey has been that, despite the company has grew enormously, extending worldwide, the stock is trading very cheap due to the insider selling indicators from Ramsey and his saga, which is expected to continue for some time. Institutional investors know it, and have accumulated 77% of the stock outstanding.
HOpefully the effects of it are not too bad..Tivo needs to get better at this point in time…
I have been researching the Tivo service, and based on all the blogs, comments, and web sites, it seems Tivo has done nothing but upset customers over the years. I have to admit, I pay $5/month for Tivo through Direct TV, and I want to try the cable card. However, those prices… WOW.. Tough to justify. Maybe with this CEO leaving, Tivo may turn public opionion around… Until then, I may “have” to stick with a generic DVR… and for those who think I don’t make enough money… think again…