(Reuters) -Politan Capital Management said on Monday it had nominated two director candidates to the board of Masimo Corp, in addition to the two seats it had won last year, marking the possible start of a second proxy battle at the medical device firm.
Shares of Masimo were up 13% in premarket trading.
Politan, which owns a nearly 9% stake in Masimo, nominated William Jellison, former CFO of Stryker, and Darlene Solomon, former CTO of Agilent Technologies as its candidates to the company’s six-person board.
Quentin Koffey-owned Politan has long criticized Masimo’s capital allocation and board oversight and expressed particular concern about last year’s $1 billion purchase of consumer audio products maker Sound United.
Masimo said on Friday that it is evaluating a proposed spinoff of its consumer business, which includes its consumer health and audio products.
While Politan said it supported the separation, it said that it was seeking two more board seats for more oversight over the process.
“When shareholders overwhelmingly elected Michelle Brennan and me to the Masimo Board last year, we were optimistic we could work productively with the rest of the Board,” Koffey said in a statement on Monday.
“Unfortunately, our efforts were continually rebuffed, as Chairman & CEO Joe Kiani refused to give us basic information,” he said in the statement.
Masimo did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
(Reporting by Christy Santhosh and Chandni Shah in Bengaluru and additional reporting by Angela Christy, Greg Roumeliotis; Editing by Kim Coghill, Jamie Freed and Sherry Jacob-Phillips)
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