Citrix CEO retires as activist investor Elliott snatches the wheel Citrix chief exec Mark Templeton has said he will retire, as activist investor Elliott Management takes a larger role in the company. Templeton joined Citrix in 1995 and has served as its CEO since 2001. But hedge fund Elliott has been among the most vocal in calling for change following what it describes as years of …
"as activist investor Elliott Management takes a larger role in the company"
Farewell Citrix, it was nice knowing you. If I were a Citrix customer, I would be seriously thinking about exit strategies at this point rather than waiting until after Elliott has driven the company into the ground as they strip its assets.
The evidence is that Elliott is an asset stripper that guts companies, sells off everything worth selling and then exits just before the stock price implodes and the company finally collapses. They, like Carl Ichann, are all about massively increasing short term gain at the expense of any semblance of long term viability.
Citrix is completely and utterly fucked. Done. Finshed. Kaput. Last one out the door turn off the lights.
to review its operations with an eye to improving its margins, profitability, and capital structure
Oh yes, the capital structure. Always good for a short term cash drain. Let's see how it works - buy a share in some company that has lots of assets like their own offices, paid back most debts and is making a small but reasonable profit. Then convince the other stock owners, that they can make short term profits by selling all assets and renting them back, cash out all reserves that the company holds, load it with debt, stuff the channel, cash in and sell your stock and get the hell out of it, before it all crashes and burns.
It's legal, and who cares about morality if some money can be made,
That's one view. Another is: rein in the company execs from their pointless glory-seeking and get them back to selling the software that customer's actually want to buy.
Given Citrix is a software company, it's assets are primarily staff, IP and any cash on the books. It's not like a hotel chain with property to sell.
"In June, the fund's management said it had reviewed Citrix's business with a team of senior software execs and come up with a "strategic and operating plan" that it claims will make the company more efficient and valuable."
Translated: We're going to bring in a bunch of the fund manager's buddies who will run the company into the ground by strategically dumping employees until costs are brought into line with soon to be ever shrinking revenue after the products go south when there is no one left to build or fix them...
Oh come on, Templeton and Citrix management did make this very easy for Elliott. Spending $1Bn on XenSource and Cloud.com and having next to nothing to show for it (except for a cool domain name) is just one example. And there is no convincing answer to explain why NetScaler and GoToMeeting need to be part of the same company. Or, in fact, why NetScaler and VDI need to be in the same company. The two products don't have the same buyer, despite the hand-wavy synergy argument. And VMware has started to eat Citrix's lunch in VDI and has a better mobile business thanks to the AirWatch buy. So you have to admit that Elliott has a point.
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