Inter-Tel Buyout Withdrawn

By Rich Tehrani

President and Editor-in-Chief

 

Vector Capital and former Inter-Tel (News - Alert) CEO Steven Mihaylo said they have withdrawn their bid for Inter-Tel. Recently Inter-Tel shareholders rejected the takeover proposal. Based on final tabulations, 11,272,46 shares were voted against the Mihaylo Resolution, or slightly more than 50 percent of the 22,524,535 shares of the company’s common stock that were represented in person or by proxy.

Stockholders who voted, other than Mihaylo, rejected the resolution by an approximate two-to-one margin. This is obviously a very substantial number. Mihaylo owns approximately 19.4 percent of Inter-Tel's outstanding common shares.

Personally, I think current management at the company is doing a good job and it would seem shareholders agree. The company is coming out with many new and innovative products and is aware of the need to get developers on their platform and moreover has a steady and consistent policy on PR and marketing.

The worst companies in this or any business are the ones who go dark, meaning they stop producing news for months or years at a time. They then seem to remember to start promoting themselves again after 18 months have passed. A surprisingly large number of unsuccessful companies seem to thrive on this principle.

I have yet to hear anything negative about Inter-Tel’s management. This isn’t to say they can’t improve but I would put management at the top end of the IP-PBX scale. I am not sure what purpose a shakeup would serve.

Well, perhaps the only benefit of this plan would have been going private and all of the benefits of reduced compliance and reporting. I wonder if the Democrats will roll back some of the Sox rules and regulations to make it more business-friendly without neutering its intent.