SiliconBeat

California Micro Devices, the recipient of a New Years Eve letter from a Dialectic Capital that urged the chip maker to pay a large chunk of its cash out to shareholders in a special dividend, sent the New York investor a reply Monday that nixed that idea, along with the notion that the company should put itself up for sale.

In his letter to Dialectic’s manager, John Fichthorn, Cal Micro Chairman Wade Meyercord said on behalf of his board that “(w)e appreciate” Dialectic’s “interest and support” as a stockholder, noting that the private equity firm had been a 5 percent owner since September 2007 (i.e, not that long a time).

“The strategic issues we have been considering include those raised in your letter,” wrote Meyercord, “but we have come to different conclusions.” Read the rest of this entry »

SciClone Pharmaceuticals was told by its largest investor Friday that it intends to nominate four candidates to SciClone’s seven-person board at its next annual meeting.

The request was made by an entity controlled by the Italian pharmaceutical group, Sigma-Tau
Finanziaria, which beneficially owns 21.3 percent of SciClone’s stock.

SciClone’s Chairman, Dean Woodman, said in a filing today that the company’s board would Read the rest of this entry »

Things are not shaping up for a Happy New Year at California Micro Devices, the Milipitas chip maker whose second largest shareholder sent it a letter New Years Eve calling for the company to pay out more than half the cash in its coffers to its shareholders in a special dividend and to “immediately engage an investment bank and begin a sale process” of itself.

In his letter to Cal Micro’s board Wednesday, Dialectic Capital Management’s John Fichthorn wrote of how the investor’s “frustration with management’s inability to perform culminated” on Dec. 10 when Cal Micro announced Read the rest of this entry »

Kana Software’s second largest shareholder, Kernan Oberting, reported buying a half million more shares recently, boosting his ownership in the Menlo Park company to 7 percent up from the 5.7 percent stake his investment firm first reported holding Nov. 21, the same day Kana’s hit a 52-week low.

His firm, KVO Capital Management, spent $304,391 buying 515,599 shares of Kana between  Nov. 25 and Dec. 16, paying on average Read the rest of this entry »

Private-equity behometh The Carlyle Group is pulling the plug on its Silicon Valley office less than a year after setting it up. The move is part of a 10 percent reduction in force the company is undertaking, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal Thursday.

“The markets are terrible and we need to adjust accordingly,” Read the rest of this entry »

Lamassu Holdings, an investment firm located in the Southern California municipal entity known as Newport Coast, revealed in a filing today that it spent $1.8 million to acquire a 9.8 percent stake in Ditech Networks, the Mountain View maker of equipment used to enhance voice quality and cancel echo in phone calls.

Lamasu’s holdings of Ditech were reported on a Form SC 13D, the kind of filing made by investors that own up to wanting to take a more active role in the company’s future, and appears to be the first Read the rest of this entry »

Selectica has a new major investor that put the San Jose developer of contract-management software on notice Thursday that it will likely be hearing more from it in the near future.

Trilogy of Austin, Texas, through its principal business Versata Enterprises, a provider of “enterprise software products and services”, revealed Friday having acquired a 5.1 percent stake in Selectica after spending Read the rest of this entry »

Actel’s third largest shareholder, Ramius, sent a letter Wednesday to that company’s chief executive, John East, as a follow up to a meeting they had Oct. 21 at Actel’s headquarters which Ramius partner Jeffrey Smith said “was extremely helpful to us in gaining a better understanding of Actel, the challenges it faces, and the future opportunities it hopes to capture. We look forward to continuing our dialogue with you and your senior management team.”

The letter then got down to business. Read the rest of this entry »

IPass, the Redwood City developer of business-mobility software that has been struggling with disgruntled investors this year who have urged the company to sell itself, named a new chief executive Monday to take over later this month to replace current CEO Kenneth Denman, who will be leaving the company (drum roll, please) “to pursue other business opportunities.”

One job Denman will immediately give up is Read the rest of this entry »

Depomed got a new major shareholder earlier this month when Kings Road Investments converted 18,158 shares of the company’s preferred stock it owned into 2.9 million shares of the Menlo Park developer of drug-delivery technology. The stake made the London-based investor Depomed’s third largest shareholder.

But the investors stake didn’t come cheap, despite the fact that Depomed shares have fallen more than 40 percent Read the rest of this entry »