- General
- March 7, 2019
- 4 minutes read
Yelp Staves Off Board Challenge
Yelp co-founder and CEO Jeremy Stoppelman image : Yelp Local-search and crowd-sourced review company Yelp has averted a board challenge from…
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| Yelp co-founder and CEO Jeremy Stoppelman
image : Yelp
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Local-search and crowd-sourced review company Yelp has averted a board challenge from investor SQN Investors LP, after the company unveiled plans to improve returns, that was in-line with that of the Redwood City, California based hedge fund. SQN made this known in a recently released public letter to the company.
Yelp, last month, announced plans to save costs and added three independent directors to its board. This was in response to criticism that it wasn’t doing enough to tackle a fall in advertising revenue. The company also recently raised its buyback budget to $500 million, up from a previous $250 million budget.
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| Yelp board chairman, Diane Irvine
image : Homecoming at Illinois State
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Other steps being taken by Yelp includes a reduction in marketing spend, increased monetization through partners, relocation of several employees from San Francisco to lower cost cities and a renewed focus on its Restaurants and Home & Local market segments. The company aims to double its size by 2023 and add roughly $1 billion in revenue through this period.
“As longstanding shareholders of Yelp, we sincerely hope that Yelp’s recent announcements represent a true commitment to change as opposed to merely defensive maneuvers and hollow promises designed to deflect shareholder pressure. We are not typically activist investors, but in this situation, we believe our public actions have yielded positive results.” SQN said in the letter.
“…..In our view, Yelp’s CEO, Jeremy Stoppelman, now has one more opportunity to reinvigorate performance under the stewardship of the new Board. We hope that this opportunity will not be squandered, and that he will be open-minded about future management changes.” the hedge fund wrote.
