Filed under: Management, Engagements, Public or private?
Shares of Trans World Entertainment Corporation (NASDAQ: TWMC) were up large this day for the first time in a long time. CEO Robert Higgins handed the company’s board a “preliminary proposal” seeking to take the company private for $5 per share in cash. Mr. Higgins already controls about 40% of the company’s stock, and the board is evaluating the offer.
Shares of TWMC soared more than 27% to close at $4.96 — so close to the “preliminary proposal” that it indicates that investors expect that the company could well sell for a higher price.
Here’s what makes this interesting. According to the company’s latest proxy statement, Mr. Higgins has been CEO for a tiny more than 5 years, even though he founded the company more than 30 years ago. The chart at right shows how the stock has performed during that period. In early 2005, shares of Trans World were trading well over $14 per share — Mr. Higgins’ offer is for just over a third of that.
What has happened since then? Trans World is in the CD and DVD business, with stores including FYE, Strawberries, Sam Goody, and Suncoast, some of which were acquired by the company out of bankruptcy. Of course, the internet has made those industries sluggish at ideal, and declining same-store sales and profitability have sent the stock tumbling.
Does Higgins deserve all the blame for the company’s woes? Of course not. But as an executive in the industry, he should have seen the changes coming and made adjustments. He didn’t, and now he is looking to take the company private at a fire-sale price, way below the company’s book value.
To some, this might be akin to hiring a carpenter to renovate your house, watching him trash it, and then receiving an offer from him to purchase it — at a small fraction of its value before he went to work.
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