Reuters – InfoUSA on Thursday urged shareholders to ignore calls from a hedge fund to vote the database firm’s founder off its board, the latest shot in an increasingly acrimonious proxy battle.
In a letter to stockholders, infoUSA founder and chief executive officer Vinod Gupta said he and two fellow board members should be reelected because they have helped the company grow and are dedicated to sound corporate governance.
“Don’t be misled by Dolphin and its principal, Donald T. Netter,” Gupta wrote, telling shareholders “the best way to preserve and enhance the value of your infoUSA investment is to support our three highly qualified nominees — Vinod Gupta, Dr. George Haddix and Dr. Vasant Raval.”
Gupta, who founded the Omaha, Nebraska-based company with $100 and owns more than 40 percent of it, said he increased infoUSA’s revenue nearly five-fold, boosting it to $383 million in 2005 from $86 million in 1995 through more than two dozen acquisitions in the last decade.
