Mark Huber is an aviation industry veteran who has worked in the flight training, aircraft sales, aircraft component, and airport development businesses. He has flight time in more than 50 different and diverse aircraft, including helicopters, aerobatic aircraft, vintage warbirds, jet fighters, business jets and turboprops, and transport-category aircraft. He has jumped out of several of these—on purpose—with a parachute. His defense and aviation journalism has been published in a variety of national and international periodicals.

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Mark Huber

Helicopter EMS provider Air Methods has responded to pressure from one of its largest institutional shareholders by revamping its board of directors and nominated a new director suggested by the dissident.

 


For months Air Methods and its senior executives had faced criticism from San Francisco-based Voce Capital Management, a&nbsp;private equity firm that owns approximately 4.9 percent, or almost 2 million shares, of Air Methods' stock, for what Voce called an unwillingness to explore options to take publicly traded Air Methods private. Doing so, Voce maintained, could increase the value of Air Methods' stock by up to 50 percent.&nbsp;

 


The criticism had been highly public. Last September Voce issued a press release in which it labeled the company “a great business” that “has become a rather crummy stock.”&nbsp;The release went on to disclose details of a meeting Voce had with Air Methods and read in part, “During our August 3 meeting, and in subsequent conversations, we’ve been struck not only by the board’s inertia but [also] by its lack of understanding of how potential acquirors would evaluate an acquisition of the company. We can’t concur with the board’s conclusion, which it stated repeatedly, that it will await the return of a higher stock price before considering a sale of the Company because doing so would create more value for shareholders. While the board expressed several variations on this theme, they are united by the common assumptions that (1) such a higher valuation is not achievable now and (2) by waiting longer a higher valuation will materialize at some point in the future. Both of those could well be wrong and most important, even if they are correct, they disregard the time and execution risks the board is imposing upon shareholders through its continued inaction.”

 


Concurrent with its criticism of Air Methods' governance, Voce proposed adding a hand-picked director to the company's board of directors, Joseph Whitters, a senior executive with extensive health care, accounting and finance experience at a variety of companies including Frazier Healthcare Partners, United Healthcare and Peat Marwick.

 


Under a cooperation agreement reached with Voce in late March, Air Methods will expand its board, nominate Whitters, and recommend him to sit on its finance and strategic planning committee.&nbsp;Also in connection with the agreement, Air Methods' board approved and will seek shareholder approval at the 2016 annual meeting to adopt a binding proposal that all directors will be elected annually commencing with the Class II directors up for re-election at the 2017 annual meeting. This will include CEO Aaron Todd.

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