Geeknet (LNUX) Insiders Hold More than 25% of Outstanding Shares After Acquiring Another 1 Million+ Shares Today. Amazon Takeover? Going Private? Or What?
November 13, 2009
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Marlin Sams Fund, L.P. acquires an additional 1,197,285 shares Nov 11 - today, Nov 13th, acquiring 1,051,166 today at $1.16. Total shares beneficially owned by William Sams, Marlin Sams, Suzanne Present, Gladwyne, et al is now at 15,262,285 or appx 25.5%.
Share acquisitions detailed at here.
...so, what is going on? I have considerable respect for Suzanne Present's* Investment Banking background at Lazard Frere and hope she is about to make something happen. Keep an eye on Michael Sileck also. He would be a superior candidate to become, at least, President and COO of Geeknet. Geeknet should be positioned for a bidding war between Amazon.com, IAC/InterActiveCorp, BestBuy, and IBM. Amazon.com would be an absolutely perfect fit, and significantly, absorbing SourceForge.net in the acquisition would also be a brilliant move for Amazon as 1) they will not be perceived as a threat to Open Source, as say, Microsoft would if they were to acquire Geeknet and 2) could make huge sense for Amazon given how Open Source has played a key part in the Amazon story.
IACI would make sense and Sileck comes from there. Best Buy would be the 2nd best choice to acquire ThinkGeek, but my strategy would have been to have ThinkGeek perform an IPO, raise $100 million and then put them in play after bringing in a key exec from Best Buy or Amazon.
In Conclusion
Given the trading patterns in the past week through today and the fact Marlin Sams et al now controls greater than 25% of Geeknet common something is up...and should be. The other compelling question is: Why hasn't Scott Kauffman ever attended an investor conference nor analyst meeting, simply as the most basic and necessary process to increase visibility and shareholder value? This simply is not normal and represents a major red flag. Conversely, the fact he hasn't says more. This information should additionally be the focus of any analysis of Geeknet. Is Geeknet about to go private? Is driving Geeknet shareholders away as investors his/SAMS et al's plan? "...The SEC allows a company with fewer than 300 shareholders to de-register its securities and become a private company. This process is typically done through a merger or tender offer (TO) that reduces the number of shareholders to one.." - Source: SmartPros.
* Suzanne M. Present Principal Gladwyne Partners, LLC
Suzanne M. Present has served on Geeknet's Board of Directors since September 2008. Ms. Present is a Principal of Gladwyne Partners, LLC, a private partnership fund manager. Prior to co-founding Gladwyne in 1998, Ms. Present was a Vice President in the mergers and acquisitions department of Lazard Frères & Co. Ms. Present joined Lazard FrÃres & Co. in 1984 as a securities analyst. Source: ZoomInfo
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