CINCINNATI, Ohio — Leaders of LCA-Vision Inc. in Cincinnati, Ohio, on Monday called “victory” in a three-month proxy battle to keep control of their company.
LCA-Vision directors have been fighting a battle for shareholder votes to keep their board seats with a group of dissident shareholders who are founders and former executives of the company. LCA-Vision does Lasik eye surgery to correct patients’ vision at vision centers nationwide, including four in Ohio.
“We appreciate the support we received from our stockholders, surgeons, optometrists and staff during the consent solicitation process and are happy to put this matter behind us,” said Steven Straus, chief executive of LCA-Vision, which provides its services under the brand name LasikPlus.
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“We are now able to focus 100 percent of our attention on our business, working closely with our medical advisory board, optometric advisory board, surgeons, optometrists and all LCA-Vision / LasikPlus staff members to manage through challenging economic times and prepare for future success,” Straus said Monday in a release.
The battle began in mid-December when Dr. Stephen Joffe formed the LCA-Vision Full Value Committee to take back leadership of the company he said had lost 90 percent of its shareholder value from the timeStraus was elected CEO in November 2006, according to an SEC filing. Joffe, a company founder, left his job as CEO early that year.
“We believe the company’s disastrous performance is primarily attributable to a lack of strategic direction, poor decision-making, and poor execution by the LCA board and executive management team,” Joffe said in an “open letter to shareholders” on Dec. 17.
Earlier in March, three proxy advisers — firms that analyze and advise shareholders on voting issues — counseled shareholders to cast their votes for the leaders of LCA-Vision and against the full-value committee. The LCA-Vision board has a plan to turn around the company whose revenues are suffering from the economic recession, the advisory firms said.
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On Thursday, Joffe called off the battle, “despite having received significant support from the stockholders” of LCA-Vision.
Joffe also said the committee withdrew its nominations of five directors to LCA-Vision’s board, dropped its opposition to so-called poison pill provisions that make it costly to do a hostile takeover of a company, and disbanded.
Joffe will continue to own 11.4 percent of his former company’s stock.
Straus said in his statement that the dissident shareholder group had garnered 6 percent of LCA-Vision shareholder votes. The company’s shares rose 15 cents to $2.65 Monday on the NASDAQ stock market.