A boardroom coup is brewing at Vancouver’s Glance Technologies Inc. (CSE:GET), a firm best known for its payment system that enables restaurant patrons to pay for their meals simply by taking a smartphone photo of the bill.
Former president and chief operating officer Penny Green, who was terminated in February, is putting up a slate of five candidates for the election of company directors at the firm’s June 12 annual general meeting.
In opposition to Green is her brother-in-law, CEO Desmond Griffin, who is also putting up a slate of five potential directors, including four incumbent directors and one new addition – Steve Cadigan, a former vice-president of talent at LinkedIn Corp.
The infighting at Glance is more than a family feud, or a clash of personalities, but rather highlights broader struggles within the technology sector, with each set of potential directors offering starkly different visions and business strategies.
The battle is also a warning for CEOs and corporate board members that when a president or other significant executive is dismissed from a firm, that person may come back with an attempt to take over the company.
Uncertainty surrounding Glance’s future direction also follows a period of turbulence in the company’s stock price that may reflect uncertainty in the tech sector over blockchain-linked companies. Glance announced it plans to create a blockchain platform that would enable diners who use its technology to pay restaurant bills to get rewards in a cryptocurrency.
Glance’s share price soared from $0.18 in late August to a peak of $3.84 on November 27, during a time period when cryptocurrency securities were blisteringly hot.
The value of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin, for example, skyrocketed between July and December of last year.
Both of those values have since crashed back to Earth.
Glance’s shares were trading around $0.50 in mid-May, while Bitcoin’s value, at around US$8,100, is less than half of its peak of more than US$19,000 in December.
Glance’s board and CEO are firmly behind the planned blockchain platform, and have a vision for the company that focuses on the company’s technology.
The company’s May 16 written response to the dissidents’ circular declares that Glance will avoid wasting “limited capital on expensive stock promotion, on dubious speculative ventures that may not be thoroughly vetted, and on excessive expenses.”
That was a shot at Green, who claimed in a May 11 filing that when she was president she had urged the board to “grow Glance through acquisitions, alliances, strategic partnerships and new business development [but] our out-of-touch, risk-averse board refused, citing a lack of time to conduct appropriate due diligence.”
Green also said she wants a “robust investor relations strategy to raise awareness about the incredible Glance opportunities.”
Griffin’s spending would focus on developing new versions of the company’s app, building revenue from a software-as-a-service subscription model and generating revenue by creating the blockchain platform.
Griffin and Green’s spat has found its way into corporate filings that take jabs at each other’s stock purchases and sales.
The volatility of companies that market themselves as cryptocurrency developers has prompted repeated warnings from the British Columbia Securities Commission (BCSC) for investors to be careful.
“B.C. residents should exercise extreme caution when considering whether to invest in a cryptocurrency offering,” the BCSC said in a May 17 alert on its website. “While some companies follow through on their business plan or idea, others do not. Some companies issue coins or tokens solely for speculative trading in the secondary market, which is an inherently risky activity for investors.”
On May 22, the BCSC participated in an international crackdown on fraudulent initial coin offerings and cryptocurrency-related investment products.
As part of what the BCSC called Operation Cryptosweep, it issued letters to 12 offshore companies that advertise their ICOs in B.C., or allow B.C. residents to participate in their ICOs. The BCSC told them to ensure compliance with B.C. law or cease operations in the province.
