Twitter Inc is in the doldrums again on Wednesday morning as the firm remains silent in its hunt for a new CEO and a plan that will allow itself to get back into the good graces of the market. Doug Kass, Founder and head of Seabreeze Partners, says a change is imminent, at least according to his sources.
This is not the first time we’ve heard that a change at Twitter is just around the corner. The most recent example came form Bob Peck of SunTrust Robinson. Peck said he expected Twitter to reveal its CEO pick last week. That never happened, and Mr. Kass is the latest to put something like a time line on the change.
Twitter CEO Pick is coming soon
In a message on Twitter on Tuesday evening Mr. Kass said, “For those that are sick and tired of $TWTR – I am hearing an imminent management change will be announced. So we have that going for us.” He’s holding shares in the social media site, and he’s just as annoyed at the loss of value as every one else.
It’s not clear what “imminent” means in this context. The same word was used by Bob Peck more than a week ago to describe the CEO choice at Twitter. Mr. Kass didn’t give any slant on what his source for the info was, nor did he nail down a date on which the firm would reveal its CEO.
Twitter shares have lost more than 30 percent of their value since the start of the year and fell to an all time low of just over $21 per share on the back of Monday’s market chaos.
Trying to save Twitter
Twitter needs a new CEO, nobody is disputing that. The firm’s last CEO Dick Costolo left on July 1. He was replaced by founder Jack Dorsey on an interim basis. Since then we’ve heard almost nothing about the process, or any progress, from the firm.
Bob Peck reckons that Mr. Dorsey will stay in his place but promote head of global sales Adam Bain to president and make Ev Williams, who helped found the firm, the new chairman. Other rumors, with many different names, have also been making the rounds.
Doug Kass believes in the Twitter story. Last week he said that he had been holding a pair trade that was long Twitter and short Facebook. That’s a brave move considering the Wall Street outlook for those firms.
Mr. Kass said on August 21 that he had gotten rid of the Facebook part of that trade, and made about $88 per share, but was holding onto his Twitter long and adding to that pile.
At time of writing Twitter shares were selling for $24.97, up more than 2 percent from Tuesday’s close. Wall Street was not really trading on hope for a new CEO, however. The tech market as a whole was up by more or less the same as calmer news from China made it seem as if the stock market pressure might let up for the week.
