3 PenUltimate Directors Step Down in Shake-Up : Restructuring: Irvine software company’s new president says pared-down board is better suited to turnaround effort.
Three members of PenUltimate Inc.’s board of directors have stepped down as part of a shake-up designed to push the small software company toward profitability, the company’s new president said Monday.
Former board chairman James L. Kelly, San Diego businessman Stuart G. Brodie and Atlanta investor Donald L. Scoggins have resigned from the seven-member board, said Richard G. Lull, who last month was named chairman, president and chief executive.
The outgoing board members were not available Monday for comment.
The shake-up “is necessary because we’re running into a brick wall,” Lull said.
PenUltimate has lost money since going public in December, 1993. In May, the company reported that it had lost $2.1 million for the first nine months of its current fiscal year, on revenue of $560,208. For the fiscal year that ended in June, 1994, the company lost $3.7 million on revenue of $300,455.
The resignations leave PenUltimate, which specializes in software for mobile computers, with a four-member board that Lull said may be more efficient for the company.
“We’re not GM, we don’t need a board with nine or 10 people,” Lull said. “We’re a small company, and we’ve gotten smaller.”
More directors may be added “if we can turn the corner and do some good things,” Lull said.
The remaining board members are Lull, company founders Paul Mondschein and Larry Taylor, and Ulrich Vollmer, a German investment banker who is a major shareholder of PenUltimate. Mondschein had been president, board chairman and chief executive officer before stepping down in February for health reasons. Kelly served as board chairman before Lull assumed the post.
The company work force, which peaked with 26 employees last year, has been reduced in recent months, but Lull declined to say by how much.
He said the company has gotten smaller primarily because it has narrowed its focus to developing software for salespeople. Previously, the company also developed software for use by law enforcement agencies and health professionals.
