Astronova Inc (ALOT)

$AIOT Roth analyst Scott Searle's comments on Powerfleet's SIXT Mexico contract announcement: "$AIOT: SIXT Is Indicative of Wins to Come: Buy Yesterday, Powerfleet disclosed that UNITY had been selected by SIXT, a leading global provider of vehicle rental brands. The deployment in Mexico covers "multi thousands" of vehicles for operational intelligence, security/asset utilization, and fuel and energy insights. We believe this is representative of opportunities in the pipeline that we expect to drive $AIOT to 10%+ SaaS growth in late FY26 (March)/FY 27 (March) Given expected accelerating sales, $ALOT remains overly-discounted, in our opinion, at ~2x EV/Sales vs comps such as Samsara $IOT " Roth price target = $13

$ALOT Kudos to Samir Patel. But for his efforts the horrific CEO Woods would likely still be in place. It's hard to imagine a more incompetent CEO coupled with a more compliant Board. The ONLY way that this situation could have changed would have been to someone to do the very uphill battle of waging a proxy fight and beat the odds that you would get ISS and Glass to side with you. Lots of out of pocket expenses and time to do this. This site is often a magnet for trashing others. Let's give the guy a round of applause.

News out Glass Lewis Endorses All Five Askeladden Nominees; Askeladden Comments on Resignation of CEO Greg Woods https://marketwirenews.com/news-releases/glass-lewis-endorses-all-five-askeladden-nominees-as-4542965691272663.html $ALOT

$ALOT Imagine you're Greg Woods. You get fired and see the stock rise 25% in response. Next time you pay a fortune for a Portugese company you might want to due dilligence.

News out AstroNova Announces Executive Leadership Change https://marketwirenews.com/news-releases/astronova-announces-executive-leadership-change-5260199677369399.html $ALOT

$ALOT Spent last night and most of the morning reading Samir and management findings. This management team has been an abect disaster aned the Board is compliant. 1. Big deal that ISS is siding with Samir. So many institutions follow their recommendations. They don't side with guys like Samir too often. Was it the quality of Samir's presentation? Was it the sheer lack of management incompetence? Hard to say. But it's a big victory. 2. Anyone reading the SEC filings side by side with even half a brain in their head would vote for Samir. I've been at this a while and I would be challenged to remember any situation in which dumping the present management and installing someone who wants to make a change would be so easy to decide. Hard to believe that anybody would vote for management other than their wives and kids.

$ALOT Samir is a good egg. I know that this is a "He said-He said" conflict. But I'd be shocked if Samir was in the wrong on this one. Samir got the blessing from ISS. This makes it far more likely that he will get institutional support. He's got a real shot at winning this proxy and I hope that he does.

$ALOT Hmm...they must like this company ALOT (smile) AstroNova's board issues statement on Samir Patel proxy contest AstroNova's board of directors issued a statement which states, among other things: "the total failure on Samir Patel's and Askeladden's part to participate in efforts to come to a collaborative and amicable solution..Samir Patel agreed with Richard S. Warzala, Lead Independent Director of AstroNova, that the content of their conversations would not be made public. He violated that confidence with his recent news release by publishing selected portions of the content of the conversations... Samir Patel violated the agreement that the content of the conversations between himself and AstroNova's Lead Independent Director were confidential...Samir Patel failed to offer any proposal of settlement...Samir Patel exposed his lack of understanding regarding corporate governance...no appreciation of director fiduciary obligations to all shareholders... no understanding of the definition of an independent director...no understanding of SEC rules...which makes him unsuitable and unqualified to serve on AstroNova's Board of Directors. We urge Shareholders to vote for AstroNova's six highly qualified director nominees."

$ALOT Askeladden says AstroNova breached confidentiality, misrepresented negotiations In a letter to AstroNova shareholders, Samir Patel of Askeladden Capital said, "Yesterday evening, we thought we were participating in confidential negotiations with AstroNova aimed at reaching a collaborative solution to the ongoing proxy contest. This morning, AstroNova blindsided us with a news release publicly mischaracterizing those talks, thereby violating our agreement to keep our discussions private, and severely undermining the prospect of continued engagement. We already knew that AstroNova's Board could not be trusted to deliver shareholder value; now we know they cannot be trusted to keep their word. Sadly, we must also now share revealing details from an exchange that we were promised would remain private. Following a call with Mr. Warzala last week, we invited the company to propose a solution. Mr. Warzala sent an egregiously one-sided proposal that would entrench the current Board while silencing our ability to advocate for shareholders. The company proposed we sign a standstill agreement in exchange for: No Board representation; Mr. Woods leaving the Board but remaining CEO; Askeladden attending a single Board meeting as an observer, with no voting rights No sane professional investor would agree to such terms. They would restrict our ability to trade or speak freely, yet offer no corresponding ability to influence company decisions. The Board wanted our silence - not our input. We told Mr. Warzala that we remained 'happy to further discuss these topics' and 'hope we can continue to have mutually beneficial dialogue,' but warned that 'in the absence of a proposal that demonstrates the Board is committed to making [...] substantial changes [...] we'd much rather let shareholders decide who best represents their interests.' We also reiterated concrete steps that could safeguard shareholder interests, such as hiring a proven print industry executive or initiating a strategic alternatives process, yet Mr. Warzala showed no interest in exploring these ideas. We intended to respond to Mr. Warzala's latest email this morning. Instead, the company rushed to issue a news release - shutting off dialogue before we even had a chance to reply in detail. AstroNova abandoned any effort to engage when we provided candid feedback on the inadequacy of their initial proposal. Once again, the company seems more concerned with scoring PR points than with resolving shareholder concerns. This mirrors their prior conduct - demanding a call on an hour's notice after months of ignoring us, then claiming we were reluctant to engage...We urge shareholders to vote to elect directors who truly care about rapidly maximizing shareholder value."

$ALOT https://wallstreetwaves.com/alot-reports-decline-in-q1-adjusted-eps-year-over-year-amid-rising-costs/