10th Jun 2019 08:54
LONDON (Alliance News) - Allied Minds PLC on Monday said it has promoted both its chief financial officer and general counsel to co-chief executive officer, and also announced the end of its long term incentive plan.
Jill Smith, president & CEO since March 2017, will retire from both roles with immediate effect but remains as Allied Minds' representative on the board of Federated Wireless.
Michael Turner, the intellectual property commercialisation firm's general counsel since May 2014, has been made co-CEO alongside CFO Joseph Pignato. Pignato has been CFO since August 2015.
Turner and Pignato have both joined the Allied Minds board as executive directors.
Allied Minds is also retiring its long term incentive plan scheme for executive directors, management, and other employees.
As a result, the new long term incentive plan awards which were "planned for issuance in May 2019 subsequent to the release of annual results" have been cancelled with no future awards to be made.
Historic share plan awards remain outstanding, but most are dependent upon relative total shareholder return performance. At Allied Minds' current share price, these existing performance awards have no value.
Allied Minds is on course to cut annualised costs, in line with its target to reduce annual costs to between USD5 million and USD6 million per year.
The company expects to shrink its headquarters headcount, with the exception of employees at its consolidated subsidiaries, as portfolio companies de-consolidate following the completion of funding rounds and move away from Allied Minds' services platform. Current headquarters space will be sublet.
Turner and Pignato said: "Our sole focus is on delivering maximum value to shareholders from our exciting portfolio of technology assets backed by powerful strategic partners. We are well placed to conclude successful funding rounds at HawkEye 360 and Federated Wireless in the short term.
"We will continue to aggressively pursue all monetisation options, balancing the requirement to deliver cash to our shareholders, against the overarching objective to maximise shareholder returns from a portfolio that includes some extremely promising assets."
Shares in Allied Minds were up 2.4% at 78.00 pence on Monday morning.
Related Shares:
ALM.L