I’ve been beating up on the Sprint Nextel board of directors for months and it appears that someone in Kansas agrees with me: four out of 13 directors are stepping down. See this account.
Two directors, Linda Koch Lorimer and Keith Bane, told the Securities and Exchange Commission in filings that they would not stand for re-election at the shareholder meeting May 13.
Last month, two other directors, Frank Drendel and William Swanson, made similar filings.
One major holdout on the board, who needs to go, is Irvine Hockaday, the former CEO of Hallmark. He’s been thoroughly useless on this board and is way over-committed elsewhere.
New CEO Dan Hesse, and major investor Ralph Whitworth, may be able to use these departures to build a truly effective board.
But the question is whether it’s too late. Sprint is still reeling in the marketplace. It could take months and years to fully change out the Sprint board. How much time does the company have before it is takeover bait?
