UNITED
STATES
SECURITIES
AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington,
D.C. 20549
SCHEDULE
14A
(Rule
14a-101)
INFORMATION REQUIRED IN PROXY STATEMENT
SCHEDULE 14A INFORMATION
Proxy Statement Pursuant to Section 14(a) of
the Securities Exchange Act of 1934
(Amendment No. )
Filed by the Registrant ☐
Filed by a Party other than the Registrant ☒
Check the appropriate box:
| ☐ | Preliminary Proxy Statement |
| ☐ | Confidential, for Use of the Commission Only (as permitted by Rule 14a-6(e)(2)) |
| ☐ | Definitive Proxy Statement |
| ☐ | Definitive Additional Materials |
| ☒ | Soliciting Material Under § 240.14a-12 |
AmeriServ Financial, Inc. |
(Name of Registrant as Specified In Its Charter)
|
|
DRIVER MANAGEMENT
COMPANY LLC
Driver Opportunity
Partners I LP
J. Abbott R.
Cooper
JULIUS D. RUDOLPH
brandon l.
simmons
|
(Name of Persons(s) Filing Proxy Statement, if other than the Registrant)
|
Payment of Filing Fee (Check all boxes that apply):
| ☐ | Fee paid previously with preliminary materials |
| ☐ | Fee computed on table in exhibit required by Item 25(b) per Exchange Act Rules 14a-6(i)(1) and 0-11 |
Driver Management Company
LLC (“Driver Management”), together with the other participants named herein (collectively, “Driver”), has filed
a preliminary proxy statement and accompanying WHITE universal proxy card with the Securities and Exchange Commission to be used to solicit
votes for the election of its slate of highly-qualified director nominees at the 2023 annual meeting of shareholders of AmeriServ Financial,
Inc., a Pennsylvania corporation (the “Company”).
On April 22, 2023, J. Abbot
R. Cooper, Managing Member of Driver Management, was quoted in the following article published by The Tribute Democrat:
AmeriServ in dispute with investor group aiming to increase its
presence on bank's board
By Russ O’Reilly
roreilly@tribdem.com
April 22, 2023
JOHNSTOWN, Pa. – AmeriServ Financial Inc.’s board of
directors and an activist investor group are in a fight for control of the company’s board.
AmeriServ’s 2023 annual meeting of shareholders – where
terms of three board members will expire and election of three new members will take place – is to be held virtually in April, though
the specific date is absent from public filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The meeting date could depend on the outcome of ongoing litigation.
In the few months since becoming an 8% shareholder of AmeriServ
late last year, New York-based Driver Management Co. LLC has launched a campaign to persuade the approximate 3,000 shareholders of AmeriServ,
a publicly traded company, to elect the Driver group’s nominees to the board of directors, SEC filings show.
Driver’s public campaign against the current AmeriServ directors
began in January after AmeriServ’s attempts to dialogue with the new shareholder group.
AmeriServ Financial, Inc. is the parent of AmeriServ Financial Bank
and AmeriServ Trust and Financial Services Co. in Johnstown. The company’s subsidiaries provide full-service banking and wealth
management services through 16 community offices in southwestern Pennsylvania and Hagerstown, Maryland.
The company has nine directors – President and CEO Jeffrey
Stopko, Allan R. Dennison, Kim W. Kunkle, Mark E. Pasquerilla, J. Michael Adams Jr., Margaret A. O’Malley, Sara A. Sargent, Amy
Bradley and Daniel A. Onorato.
Three seats are up for election in 2023.
The incumbent AmeriServ board is backing the reelection of Onorato,
executive vice president and chief of corporate affairs for Highmark Health, as well as the election of two new people – Richard
W. Bloomingdale, recently retired president of the Pennsylvania American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations;
and David J. Hickton, former U.S. attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania.
The Driver group is composed of J. Abbott R. Cooper, Julius D. Rudolf
and Brandon L. Simmons. All three men are seeking election to AmeriServ’s board, saying AmeriServ has been underperforming for shareholders
for years.
Cooper founded Driver Management in 2018. He was previously senior
portfolio manager of financial opportunity strategy at Hilton Capital Management, an investment management firm.
Rudolph has been the chief executive officer of McKnight Realty
Partners, a private commercial real estate investment, development and operating company, since December.
Simmons is president and chairman of Let Our Vision Evolve, a nonprofit
organization educating underrepresented professionals about private sector opportunities. He founded the organization last year. Previously,
Simmons was an investor and adviser of GameOn Technology, a software development company.
AmeriServ rejected Driver’s submissions for board nominations
based on Driver’s omission of information required by the SEC to be included in nomination notices, according to the company’s
SEC filings and court documents.
And in March, AmeriServ filed a complaint with the Cambria County
Court of Common Pleas against the Driver group, seeking a declaratory judgment that the company properly rejected Driver’s nomination
notice and – due to the rejection – the Driver group has no right to nominate any candidates for election as directors at
the annual meeting.
Driver responded by filing a complaint in the U.S. District Court
for the Western District of Pennsylvania against the company and the board, seeking to postpone AmeriServ’s annual meeting until
the court determines whether its nomination notice was properly rejected. Those proceedings are pending.
The election at the annual meeting will involve a proxy vote. Rather
than physically attending a meeting to vote, shareholders will receive proxy cards in the mail that allow someone else to vote in their
place. A person designated as a proxy will cast a vote in line with the shareholder’s directions as written on the proxy card.
“Unless the result of the litigation is that the Purported
Nomination Notice (from Driver) is deemed valid, any director nominations made by the Driver Group will be disregarded, and no proxies
voted in favor of the Purported Driver Nominees will be recognized or tabulated at the Annual Meeting,” AmeriServ stated in a letter
to shareholders filed with the SEC.
Driver has similarly launched campaigns against three other community
banks – First United Corp. in Oakland, Maryland; Republic First Bancorp in Philadelphia; and Codorus Valley Bancorp in York –
since 2020, according to the trade publication American Banker.
In April 2021, the $1.8 billion-asset First United agreed to pay
Driver $9.8 million to settle outstanding litigation and buy back its shares in the company, American Banker reported.
On Tuesday, the AmeriServ Board sent a letter to shareholders saying
AmeriServ would not buy back the Driver group’s shares at a higher price or pay for Driver’s litigation expenses.
Such a statement was made in January by board chairman Allan R.
Dennison in a letter to Cooper.
”We have no intention of agreeing to the type of seemingly
self-enriching share repurchases and cash payments that Driver has extracted from other community banks in order to end litigious contests,”
Dennison wrote.
Reached by phone Friday and asked whether the group wants a settlement
similar to what it won from First United, Cooper said the circumstances involving First United were “complicated.”
“We’ve never asked AmeriServ to do that,” he said.
“I saw that (in the letter). It’s a non sequitur. To
me it wasn’t part of the conversation,” Cooper said. “The board needs to change, is what we told them.”
Even if the court rules in favor of Driver to allow the group to
run for election and it succeeds in getting all three board seats, the group would still constitute a minority on the board.
“For now, we have to get in and figure out what’s going
on,” Cooper said. “We have to suss out the situation.”
Driver’s solicitations to shareholders for support allege
AmeriServ has “created a legacy of underperformance.” In its solicitation for votes, Driver included charts showing AmeriServ’s
return on assets – a standard measure of bank profitability – for the years 2000 to 2022 compared to the Dow Jones U.S. Micro
Cap Banks Index.
In his January letter to Cooper, Dennison said the board does not
believe it is in all of AmeriServ’s stakeholders’ best interests to address every public and private statement made by Driver,
but he did highlight a fact that he said Driver omitted.
“It is also notable that AmeriServ’s strategy has driven
post-pandemic stockholders returns of approximately 31%, which Driver has overlooked when attacking the company,” Dennison wrote.
CERTAIN INFORMATION CONCERNING THE PARTICIPANTS
Driver Management Company LLC (“Driver Management”),
together with the other participants named herein (collectively, “Driver”), has filed a preliminary proxy statement and accompanying
WHITE universal proxy card with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) to be used to solicit votes for the election
of its slate of highly-qualified director nominees at the 2023 annual meeting of shareholders of AmeriServ Financial, Inc., a Pennsylvania
corporation (the “Company”).
DRIVER STRONGLY ADVISES ALL SHAREHOLDERS OF THE COMPANY
TO READ THE PROXY STATEMENT AND OTHER PROXY MATERIALS AS THEY BECOME AVAILABLE BECAUSE THEY WILL CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION. SUCH PROXY
MATERIALS WILL BE AVAILABLE AT NO CHARGE ON THE SEC’S WEB SITE AT HTTP://WWW.SEC.GOV.
IN ADDITION, THE PARTICIPANTS IN THIS PROXY SOLICITATION WILL PROVIDE COPIES OF THE PROXY STATEMENT WITHOUT CHARGE, WHEN AVAILABLE, UPON
REQUEST. REQUESTS FOR COPIES SHOULD BE DIRECTED TO THE PARTICIPANTS’ PROXY SOLICITOR.
The participants in the proxy solicitation are anticipated
to be Driver Management, Driver Opportunity Partners I LP (“Driver Opportunity”), J. Abbott R. Cooper, Julius D. Rudolph and
Brandon L. Simmons.
As of the date hereof, the participants in the proxy
solicitation beneficially own in the aggregate 1,477,919 shares of Common Stock, par value $0.01 per share, of the Company (the “Common
Stock”). As of the date hereof, Driver Opportunity directly beneficially owns 201,000 shares of Common Stock, including 1,000 shares
held in record name. Driver Management, as the general partner of Driver Opportunity and investment manager to certain separately managed
accounts (the “SMAs”), may be deemed to beneficially own the (i) 201,000 shares of Common Stock directly beneficially owned
by Driver Opportunity and (ii) 1,276,919 shares of Common Stock held in the SMAs. Mr. Cooper, as the managing member of Driver Management,
may be deemed to beneficially own the (i) 201,000 shares of Common Stock directly beneficially owned by Driver Opportunity and (ii) 1,276,919
shares of Common Stock held in the SMAs. Neither of Messrs. Rudolph or Simmons beneficially own any securities of the Company.
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