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From Home Furnishing Business
Rent-A-Center Chairman, Two Others Ousted at Annual Meeting
June 8,
2017 by Larry Thomas in Business Strategy, Industry 
Dissident Rent-A-Center shareholder Engaged Capital has succeeded in ousting three of the company’s directors, including longtime board chairman Mark Speese.
Rent-A-Center (NASDAQ: RCII) said Speese, Jeffery Jackson and Leonard Roberts will be replaced on the board by Engaged Capital nominees Jeffery Brown, Christopher Hetrick and Mitchell Fadel, a former Rent-A-Center president.
Engaged Capital, a hedge fund that owns nearly 20% of Rent-A-Center’s stock, had mounted a proxy fight to get its nominees elected after unsuccessfully trying to persuade Rent-A-Center’s board to consider a sale of the struggling rent-to-own powerhouse.
The election of the Engaged Capital nominees was announced Thursday morning at Rent-A-Center’s annual meeting, but specific shareholder voting results were not immediately available. The hedge fund released a statement claiming its nominees were “resoundingly elected,” and said the preliminary results “represent a clear mandate from stockholders and an unequivocal endorsement of Engaged Capital’s campaign.”
Rent-A-Center acknowledged that its board nominees had been defeated, but said complete voting results will be available within four business days.
The company said Speese, one of Rent-A-Center’s founders, would remain CEO, but is being replaced as chairman of the board by Steven Piper, who currently serves as lead director of the board.