Just weeks after joining St. Joe’s(JOE) Board, and days after proposing Charlie Crist as an additional Board Member, Fairholme’s Bruce Berkowitz, whose fund owns over 30% of the company has resigned, effective immediately. Charles Fernandez, also of Fairholme resigned as well. The company, which put itself up for sale last week, has been a topic of much discussion since David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital made a widely-reported presentation declaring that it was overvalued and heading lower.
In a 13-D/A filed this morning, Berkowitz and Fernandez disclosed that
On February 14, 2011, Mr. Berkowitz and Mr. Fernandez sent the following email to the Board:
Directors of St. Joe:
The two of us have discussed the situation at St. Joe and its nominating and governance process. We will not stand for re-election except as part of a Board where a majority of the directors are committed to shareholder value, pay for performance, and effective corporate governance.
After working with the current Board over these past weeks, we have concluded that the current Board is not in a position to propose such a slate of directors.
Accordingly, we withdraw our names from consideration by the Nominating and Governance Committee for election at the Annual General Meeting, and we resign from the Board of St. Joe effective immediately.
Bruce & Charlie
We’re pretty certain with a 30% stake that Berkowitz is not done here; we would expect to see Berkowitz continue to accumulate stock and pressure the company to adopt his plans.
Disclosure: The author owns no shares of JOE
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