A proxy battle is heating up at Vancouver-based online brand-builder Live Current Media Inc. (OTCBB: LIVC) with the company’s former president taking on the role of leading dissident shareholder.
In a release Tuesday night, David Jeffs, who was Live Current’s president from 2002 to 2007, urged the company’s shareholders to make “badly needed changes” at the firm by ousting its current chairman and CEO and the board of directors at the company’s annual general meeting October 12.
Jeffs, who owns approximately 3.74% of the outstanding shares of the company, has proposed himself and six other nominees for election as directors of the company.
The six nominees, all of whom are also investors or former officers of Live Current are John Da Costa, Carl Jackson, Susan Jeffs, Cameron Pan, Adam Rabiner and Amir Vahabzadeh.
The nominees together own 15.45% of the outstanding Live Current stock.
Jeffs said that since he left the company in September 2007 the company’s share price has dropped from more than $2 a share to $0.08, while revenue fell 59% year-over-year last quarter.
He said shareholders have been diluted by more than 40%, mostly by the issuance of 5.95 million shares in July 2010 and August 2010 at $0.10 per share. He claims a majority of those shares were purchased by the company’s chairman and CEO Geoffrey Hampson, his family and other members of the board.
Jeffs also said that quarterly operating expenses have increased 404% since he left a managerial role with the company.
Hampson was most notably CEO and president of Vancouver-based data-centre operator PEER 1 Network Enterprises Inc. from 2001 to 2006.
Live Current could not be reached for comment.