The Reporting Persons are extremely disappointed with the response provided by the Issuer in a Form 8-K (the “Form 8-K”) filed within just a few hours of the Reporting Persons sending an open letter to the Board on November 22, 2016 (the “November 22 Letter”). In the Reporting Persons’ view, the Board’s actions as described in the Form 8-K and the private letter sent by the Issuer’s Board to the Reporting Persons on November 23, 2016 (the “Private Letter”) are wholly inadequate and not only fail to address the Reporting Persons’ concerns but exacerbate them.
The Reporting Persons are dismayed that Executive Chairman Michael Leatherman remains on the Board and that the Board intends to nominate him for re-election as a director, though not as Executive Chairman, at the 2017 annual meeting of stockholders (the “2017 Annual Meeting”).
The Reporting Persons are alarmed by the Board’s determination in the Private Letter that Mr. Leatherman’s misrepresentation of his credentials is “not material” despite the fact that, (i) as interim CFO and a member of the Audit Committee, he presided over the preparation of the 2011 to 2014 financial statements of the Issuer that ultimately needed restatement or revision, and (ii) as an individual with no prior industry experience relevant to radiation measurement, the Board held out Mr. Leatherman’s CPA status as a material qualification for his election as a director.
The Board’s decision not to make public this determination demonstrates, in the Reporting Persons’ view, a lack of interest in transparent and honest communication with stockholders, as the Form 8-K response does not address the prior misstatement at all, despite the Reporting Persons pointing to possible implications for the Issuer under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, and the Illinois Public Accounting Act. Instead, the Form 8-K response includes a new biography for Mr. Leatherman, which appears to the Reporting Persons to be an attempt to camouflage a biographical restatement alongside new biographies for two other longstanding members of the Board. In the Reporting Persons’ view, Mr. Leatherman’s new biography, while now claiming that he has not practiced as a CPA, again improperly implies that he is qualified as a CPA, stating “[i]n 1984, Mr. Leatherman received a Certified Public Accountant certificate.” The Reporting Persons again remind the Board that under applicable law, individuals who have not earned a CPA license may not use the terms “Certified Public Accountant,” “CPA,” or similar terms like “Certified Public Accountant certificate” that may be misleading to the public. The Reporting Persons find this wordsmithing disingenuous and insulting to stockholders.
In the Reporting Persons’ view, the Form 8-K response is yet another instance of the Board failing to hold itself accountable, both for misrepresentations as to Mr. Leatherman’s qualifications and for the value destruction overseen by the Board, as detailed in the November 22 Letter. The Issuer announced in the Form 8-K that Lead Independent Director Bill Dempsey would replace Mr. Leatherman as Chairman of the Board at the 2017 Annual Meeting. The Reporting Persons remain perplexed as to how passing the chairmanship from one long-time director to another does anything to “deepen and diversify the expertise of the Board,” as the Issuer claims in the Form 8-K response. Indeed, the Reporting Persons cannot overlook that Mr. Dempsey, Mr. Leatherman, and other long-tenured Board members, despite their so-called “expertise,” oversaw a series of strategic and operational errors that have cost stockholders hundreds of millions of dollars, as explained in the November 22 Letter. Accordingly, the Reporting Persons do not view Mr. Dempsey as a voice independent from the Issuer’s past governance failures and believe the status quo will continue under his leadership.
The Reporting Persons have privately informed the Issuer of its grave concerns with the response and reiterated that Mr. Leatherman should be removed as a director and officer immediately. In light of the Form 8-K response, the Private Letter, and the apparent ongoing refusal to publicly and transparently address the governance concerns raised by the Reporting Persons, the Reporting Persons believe the Board has failed to place the best interests of stockholders ahead of the personal interests of insiders. Accordingly, the Reporting Persons believe they are left with no alternative but to run a slate of directors in opposition to the Board’s nominees at the 2017 Annual Meeting.