Former Performance Sports Group Chairman W. Graeme Roustan suspended his campaign to be elected a director of the company “for the time being” while accusing PSG’s current Chairman Bernie McDonell of making “unfounded attacks on his character.”
Roustan inferred that McDonell was willing to spend “close to $1 million of shareholders' money” in keeping him off the board and decided that his input “would not be encouraged or respected by the current chairman” is he had joined the board.
“While I would have preferred to ask management the tough questions inside the boardroom and work with the board to get constructive answers, just as I did as chairman from 2008 to 2012, my efforts have at least put the board on notice that these issues need to be addressed,” said Roustan in a press release “Like all long-term shareholders and retail customers, I will closely monitor how Performance Sports Group addresses them going forward.”
As reported, Roustan first approached PSG’s board to seek a seat in January 2015 and he has questioned the company’s imminent opening of its own “Own the Moment” Bauer Hockey retail stores. He became chairman in 2008 following Nike’s sale of the company, then Bauer Performance Sports Ltd., to Kohlberg & Co., and resigned in 2012. He holds around a 1.3 percent stake in PSG.
PSG had sent a letter to shareholders strongly recommending that shareholders vote for its nominees for director and against Roustan, asserting the board “consistently executed on our growth strategy, and delivered meaningful value for all of our shareholders.”
The company owns the Bauer, Mission, Maverik, Cascade, Inaria, Combat, and Easton brand names
