It has proved to be an interesting week for Miranda.
On Tuesday, March 20th Miranda announced that Scott Murray, former VP Product Marketing at Grass Valley, had joined the company as VP Multiviewers. Murray is familiar to Broadcast Engineering readers as a long-time Grass Valley executive, serving there for more than 11 years.
The bigger news came Wednesday, when Miranda announced changes in the makeup of the company’s board of directors and said publicly that the company was open to being sold or to developing partnerships with others.
Confirmation of the seriousness of the board’s action is reflected in several actions.
First, board member Thomas Cantwell will retire and his suggested replacement is Tim Thorsteinson. A name familiar in broadcast circles, Thorsteinson has an extensive background of running media technology companies—including those going through major changes.
Second, according to Kevin Joyce, Miranda’s chief sales and marketing officer, over the last year Miranda has received unsolicited offers regarding potential transactions and partnerships from several companies. The result, according to Joyce, is that the Miranda board wanted to hold structured discussions with potential strategic partners as part of the Corporation’s review of ways to enhance value and to build on the positive momentum that the firm has generated over the past two years.
The board formed a committee of five directors to review proposals and strategic options. To assist with this process BMO Capital Markets was retained as financial advisor and Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP as legal counsel.
Hiring an outside financial and legal counsel means the board is serious and the nomination of Thorsteinson must be considered a component in that process. He has been through the M&A process before, knows the industry and players well, so his input will be valuable in whatever decisions the board make.
Finally, the board has scheduled its annual shareholder’s meeting for April 17th, smack in the middle of the NAB convention. That was certainly a unique choice of dates.
Best off all, at least for Miranda shareholders, the Broo-ha-ha seems to have pleased the stock market. On the last day of February, Miranda stock sold for $10.30. Today it is 12.00. Not bad for three weeks. On a year-to-year basis, Miranda stock almost doubled from $6.50 a year ago to $12.00 as I finish this post.
Stay tuned.
