Strategy in TECH...
Voxx International Corporation (Nasdaq: VOXX) reported its financial performance after markets closed on Wednesday for its Fiscal 2025 first quarter, the 90-day period that ended on May 31, 2024. The result was a mixed bag, including a shocking 18.1% decline in reported net sales, but also a bit of a counterbalance to that with news of a reduced loss due to the company’s extra effort to control and lower its cost structure.
In other Masimo Corporation (Nasdaq: MASI) news this week (other than its raging proxy war, that is), the company released its Fiscal 2024 second-quarter revenue performance, and results were quite mixed between its two major divisions – Masimo Healthcare & Masimo Non-Healthcare (aka Masimo Consumer, the Sound United business). The company doesn’t always release preliminary data, but when they do it is typically just a few top-line numbers.
But this particular preliminary report was surprising for the amazing lack of information offered on its Consumer business unit results.
Every day brings us closer to the Masimo 2024 Annual Meeting of Stockholders scheduled for July 25th…and virtually every day also brings us more Masimo madness. The proxy war for two seats on the Board of Directors being fought between the company management and activist investor Politan Capital Management continues to heat up. Consequently, we learn new things every week, some of which can be disturbing. This week is no exception as we discover: 1) the company publishes letters from employees that suggest they may all quit; 2) the Joint Venture Partner interested in buying a majority stake in Sound United has offered terms that specify a price range it is willing to pay; and 3) Politan has filed paperwork with the SEC that includes a letter to the Masimo Board of Directors claiming it has detected voting irregularities known as “empty voting.”
As we prepare to celebrate Independence Day and kick off our summer activities in earnest, I want to wish everyone a safe and fun 4th of July holiday! Thank you for reading Strata-gee!
Cambridge Audio, the U.K.-based audio specialty maker and merchant of affordable premium-grade audio gear, introduced today its first-ever over-ear headphones in its award-winning Melomania wireless headphone series. The new Melomania P100 balances elegant design with spectacular sound quality…blending in mind-blowing battery life and a healthy dose of best-in-class technology.
Interesting news out of Japan as we learn that Ricoh, a large Japanese imaging company that owns the Pentax camera brand, is launching its first film camera under the Pentax brand in over 20 years. This new model, the Pentax 17, will launch first in overseas markets in June, and then in the domestic (Japan) market in July.
The National Samsung Electronics Union (NSEU) announced on Monday that it will launch a general strike against Samsung that will continue until the company meets its demands for better pay and more time off, according to a report by Reuters. The union went on to warn “of [a] more damaging action” against the company than a one-day walkout last month.
In a new filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Masimo Corporation (Nasdaq: MASI) reveals that Bilal Muhsin, its Chief Operating Officer (COO) has sent a conditional letter of resignation to the Board of Directors. The move is yet another escalation in the proxy war for control of the company between Masimo management and activist investment group Politan Capital Management – one of the company’s largest shareholders that already holds two seats on its Board.
The annual Masimo (Nasdaq: MASI) shareholder meeting is now just four weeks away, and on Wednesday we saw a blizzard of proxy filings by both Masimo management and activist investor Politan Capital Management. The gloves are off and the pugilists are swinging. But how is this fight shaping up? Who has the upper hand?
In yet another sign of mega changes in the electronics industry, news comes to us out of Japan via the Nikkei that Sharp Corp. – a division of Apple supplier Foxconn – is in negotiation to sell off a majority of the property and factory associated with its largest LCD panel manufacturing facility in Japan. That news alone surprised many in Japan, as Sharp has been a world leader in developing LCD TVs, but also surprising is that it would choose to sell this facility, a flagship for them in Sakai, a coastal city in Osaka.
Also surprising, a bidding war has broken out as multiple big players seek to turn the factory into a data center for use in generative AI, a technology in which Japan feels it lags.
