Hewlett-Packard Co. plans board renomination on its way to stability

People with knowledge of the matter revealed that Hewlett-Packard Co. seeks stability and consolidation of the company after a few years of board reorganization. That is the reason why the company plans to renominate its slate of directors, including Mr. Ralph Whitworth, who is an activist investor and interim chairman.

According to the director of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware – Charles Elson – Mr Whitworth is one of the few activist investors, who are about to gain the position of a chairman of a company they invest in. Mr Elson said: “This is quite rare, but Ralph Whitworth is a rare individual. He has respect on both the managerial and the shareholder sides.”

If such a renomination takes place, Hewlett-Packard will become one of the few companies that have an activist investors as Chairman. Another board member is Mr. Ray Lane, who took the position of a Chairman in April 2013 after shareholders showed their dissatisfaction with the performance of the company. The shareholders re-elected Mr. Lane last March, but he resigned his chairmanship. During the time when he has been on the lead, the company faced missed sales forecasts. Hewlett-Packard Co. also fought with the consequences of the decision to explore a spin-off of the personal computer division, as well as with the catastrophic acquisition of the Autonomy Corp. software maker.

Two people, who are familiar with the situation, but who also asked not to be named, because the information is not public yet, said that the rest of the 12 members of the board will also be renominated on the annual shareholder meeting, which is going to take place on March the 19th.

Hewlett-Packard Co. is currently facing some difficulties. The company is one of the largest computers, servers and printers manufacturers worldwide, but it experiences a third straight year of sales declines. A spokesman of the company – Michael Thacker refused to make any comments on the situation. He also did not make the board members available for interviews. The list of proposed directors can be changed until the proxy voting materials are released by the company. In the last few years these materials have been published in late January or early February.

According to CNN Money, the current share price of Hewlett-Packard Co. is 0.33% up, and its one-year return rate is 1.00% down. The 23 analysts offering 12-month price forecasts for Hewlett-Packard Co. have a median target of 28.00, with a high estimate of 35.00 and a low estimate of 17.00. The median estimate represents a 1.08% increase from the last price of 27.70.