Kids clothing retailer The Children's Place is leaning on Sard Verbinnen & Co. for PR counsel as it works to placate an insurgent group of activist investor-shareholders gunning for two board seats.
Macellum Advisors and Barington Capital, claiming a 2.1% stake in the company and leading a group they call Shareholders for Change at The Children's Place, offered a slate of two nominees to "bring a fresh perspective" and boost oversight and governance. The group, which says the retailer has underperformed the market and its peers, has engaged proxy firm D.F. King & Co. for that push.
Secaucus, N.J.-based TCP, which had $1.76B in sales in 2014, said May 20 it offered a compromise, rejected by the shareholder group, to add one of the group's proposed nominees and to retain a search consultant to find a second, mutually agreeable director. The rejected nominee, Seth Johnson, sits on the board of TCP competitor Tilly's.
The shareholder group says it did not reject the settlement, but balked at a search for a second director that could take up to a year. “Without any further notice, and to our great surprise, the company issued a press release falsely stating that we had rejected their proposal," the group said May 20.
Sard managing director Paul Caminiti and VP Pamela Blum are advising TCP. Mackenzie Partners is soliciting proxies for TCP.
TCP's annual meeting is set for May 22.
Teneo is handling the initial public offering of CVC Capital Partners, one of Europe’s largest private equity firms with nearly $200B in assets under management.
Brunswick Group represents Endeavor Group Holdings as it agrees to go private via its acquisition by Silver Lake technology investment firm, which is handled by Edelman Smithfield.
Tod Donhauser, a nine-year veteran of Edelman, has joined H/Advisors Abernathy as managing director and head of its San Francisco office.
Intelligent Group Ltd, a Hong Kong-based financial PR firm, has priced its initial public offering of 1.9M shares at $4, which is the low end of the $4 to $5 range.
Kekst CNC represents Grant Thornton as it sells a majority stake in its US arm to New Mountain Capital, which relies on Goldin Solutions, in what is billed as the largest PE investment in the accounting and advisory sector.
Have a comment? Send it to 
No comments have been submitted for this story yet.