Pitney Bowes Files Investor Presentation for 2023 Annual Meeting
April 13 2023 - 4:30PM
Business Wire
Urges Shareholders to Vote FOR Pitney Bowes’
Nominees and Katie May on the GOLD Proxy Card
Pitney Bowes (the “Company”) (NYSE:PBI), a
global shipping and mailing company that provides technology,
logistics, and financial services, today announced that it has
filed an investor presentation with the U.S. Securities and
Exchange Commission (“SEC”) in connection with the Company’s 2023
Annual Meeting of Shareholders (the “Annual Meeting”) to be held on
May 9, 2023. The full presentation can be found here.
Key Highlights of the Presentation
- Over the past 10 years, the Pitney Bowes Board and its
management team have taken decisive actions to create sustainable
value for shareholders by transforming the Company from a position
of secular decline to growth. The Board and management team
have overseen the Company’s significant transformation to address
structural business challenges and reposition Pitney Bowes as a
shipping and logistics business comprised of a balanced and
coherent portfolio of steady revenue and high-growth segments. This
includes simplifying the business into three synergistic segments
focused on reducing the complexity of mailing and shipping for
clients – Sending Technologies (“SendTech”), Presort, and Global
Ecommerce (“GEC”) – and we have taken targeted steps to optimize
these segments to the current business climate through the
following:
- SendTech – Reinvested to create a comprehensive letter mailing
and parcel shipping solution.
- Presort – Invested through acquisitions and technology to
enable growth in a declining environment.
- GEC – Built a new growth segment delivering $1.6 billion of
revenue as of 2022, which is on the path to being profitable.
- Pitney Bowes’ transformation strategy has laid a strong
foundation for sustainable profitable growth and shareholder value
creation. Investments in GEC have significantly enhanced Pitney
Bowes’ domestic parcel operations and capabilities, while
investments in modernizing product portfolio and technology
infrastructure have boosted growth potential for both SendTech and
Presort.
- At the time of Marc Lautenbach’s appointment as CEO in
December 2012, Pitney Bowes was a portfolio of disjointed
businesses in decline, several of which were suffering from a lack
of investment in their product lines. Mr. Lautenbach’s
leadership has helped reduce debt by $1.7 billion, eliminate
several hundred million dollars of expenses, return $1.5 billion of
capital to shareholders via dividends and share repurchases, invest
$2.6 billion in our businesses, and divest $2.1 billion of
strategically incoherent, slower-growth businesses. Throughout his
tenure, Mr. Lautenbach has also improved the Company’s revenue CAGR
from -8.6% from 2007 – 2012, the years prior to his joining the
Company, to 4.9% from 2017 – 2022.
- Following the acquisition of Newgistics and other strategic
investments, Pitney Bowes has built GEC into a leading, integrated
ecommerce logistics player capable of leveraging USPS final mile
delivery for nationwide coverage, and the business is well
positioned for continued growth and margin expansion as volumes
increase. Supported by a series of strategic investments, GEC
has grown at a ~23% CAGR between 2015 and 2022, and has recently
made vast improvements in our operating and financial KPIs,
including:
- Improved on time delivery from 78% in March 2022 to over 90%
currently.
- Improved average domestic delivery time by two days in 2022 vs.
2021.
- Improved customer loyalty, measured by Net Promoter Score
(NPS), by 23 points year-over-year (“YoY”) in 2022.
- Reduced revenue churn from 17% in 2021 to 8% in 2022.
- Added 90+ new domestic parcel contract signings in 2022.
- Improved unit gross profit by $0.34 YoY in 2022.
- Enhanced consumer tracking event speed from 12 – 24 hours at
the time of the former Newgistics acquisition to now being within
seconds.
- GEC’s current purpose-built strategy for B2C ecommerce
logistics is the right one and departing from this strategy – as
Hestia proposes – would be value destructive and unravel the
significant network build-out, ecommerce logistics foothold, and
strong client relationships we have established.
- The Pitney Bowes Board is comprised of a strong, engaged,
and diverse set of directors, with a balanced mix of experience,
skills, leadership expertise, and new perspectives. In line
with its commitment to regular and ongoing Board refreshment,
Pitney Bowes recently appointed Darrell Thomas and Steven D. Brill
to the Board, supported the election of Hestia nominee Katie May at
the upcoming Annual Meeting, elected Robert M. Dutkowsky as
Non-Executive Chair of the Board, along with announcing that three
current directors will not stand for re-election. This continues
the path of Board refreshment that the Company has undertaken the
last few years. If Pitney Bowes’ recommended director nominees are
elected, 88.9% of the Board will be independent, 66.7% of the Board
will be diverse, and the average director tenure of the Board will
be approximately 5.1 years. These changes exceed Hestia’s initial
demands in the fall of 2022, and we believe any further near-term
change would put Pitney Bowes’ operational stability and
shareholder value at risk.
- Hestia’s nominees, with the notable exception of Katie May,
lack the necessary experience and skills to execute Pitney Bowes’
strategy, enhance long-term value for shareholders, and would be
detrimental to the success of the Company. Hestia has grossly
exaggerated the relevant backgrounds of its nominees and the
majority of the business experience that Hestia cites for its
director nominees is either superficial or not relevant to Pitney
Bowes.
- Marc Lautenbach is the right person to lead Pitney Bowes and
his leadership is crucial to the future success of the Company.
Mr. Lautenbach has directed the Company’s strategic transformation
and taken decisive action to position the business for sustainable
value creation for shareholders in an unpredictable and volatile
market – moving Pitney Bowes from a position of secular decline to
growth. A change in leadership at this juncture would impede the
Company’s significant transformation progress over the past decade
and put shareholder value at risk.
- Despite claiming to have a qualified interim CEO candidate
since December 2022, Hestia has not been able to present one and
has instead defaulted to naming one of its previously named
director nominees, Lance Rosenzweig as a last resort. The Board
does not believe that Mr. Rosenzweig is qualified to serve as a
director of Pitney Bowes, much less as CEO, based on his history of
poor performance and weak corporate governance track record, as
well as his lack of shipping and logistics experience.
- Pitney Bowes has sought in earnest to work with Hestia over
many months to avoid a costly and distracting proxy fight. We
have already thoughtfully addressed Hestia’s initial demand of
appointing three new directors to the Board through the
appointments of Darrell Thomas and Steven D. Brill, along with the
recommendation of Katie May for election at the Annual Meeting.
However, Hestia has instead proceeded to move the goalposts and has
continued to propose a wide range of conflicting and changing
points of view and demands. Hestia’s erratic ‘flip-flopping’ has
made it impossible for Pitney Bowes and Hestia to reach an amicable
resolution and proves that Hestia has an incoherent, half-baked
vision for how it would run the Company.
VOTE THE GOLD
PROXY CARD TODAY FOR ALL THE PITNEY BOWES’ RECOMMENDED
NOMINEES
The Board recommends all shareholders to vote “FOR” all the
nominees recommended by the Pitney Bowes Board (all eight Company
nominees and the recommended Hestia nominee, Katie May) on the
GOLD proxy card today. All
Pitney Bowes shareholders of record as of the close of business on
March 10, 2023 are entitled to vote in connection with the Annual
Meeting. Please vote using one of the following methods:
Vote Online
Go to the website identified on the
enclosed GOLD proxy card or
voting instruction form.
Vote by Mail
If you received your Annual Meeting
material by mail, you also may choose to grant your proxy by
completing, signing, dating, and returning the enclosed
GOLD proxy card.
To view the presentation, or for more information about the 2023
Annual Meeting, please visit: www.VoteforPitneyBowes.com.
Shareholders who have any questions or need assistance voting may
contact the Company’s proxy solicitor, Morrow Sodali LLC, toll-free
at 1 (800) 662-5200.
About Pitney Bowes
Pitney Bowes (NYSE:PBI) is a global shipping and mailing company
that provides technology, logistics, and financial services to more
than 90 percent of the Fortune 500. Small business, retail,
enterprise, and government clients around the world rely on Pitney
Bowes to remove the complexity of sending mail and parcels. For the
latest news, corporate announcements and financial results visit
https://www.pitneybowes.com/us/newsroom.html. For additional
information visit Pitney Bowes at www.pitneybowes.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
This document contains “forward-looking statements” about the
Company’s expected or potential future business and financial
performance. Forward-looking statements include, but are not
limited to, statements about future revenue and earnings guidance
and future events or conditions. Forward-looking statements are not
guarantees of future performance and involve risks and
uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially
from those projected. In particular, we continue to navigate the
impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic (Covid-19) as well as the risk of
a global recession, and the effects that they may have on our and
our clients’ business. Other factors which could cause future
financial performance to differ materially from expectations, and
which may also be exacerbated by Covid-19 or the risk of a global
recession or a negative change in the economy, include, without
limitation, declining physical mail volumes; changes in postal
regulations or the operations and financial health of posts in the
U.S. or other major markets or changes to the broader postal or
shipping markets; the loss of, or significant changes to, United
States Postal Service (USPS) commercial programs, or our
contractual relationships with the USPS or USPS’ performance under
those contracts; our ability to continue to grow and manage
volumes, gain additional economies of scale and improve
profitability within our Global Ecommerce segment; changes in labor
and transportation availability and costs; and other factors as
more fully outlined in the Company’s 2022 Form 10-K Annual Report
and other reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission
(the “SEC”). Pitney Bowes assumes no obligation to update any
forward-looking statements contained in this document as a result
of new information, events or developments.
Important Additional Information and Where
to Find It
Pitney Bowes has filed a definitive proxy statement (the “Proxy
Statement”) and other documents with the SEC in connection with its
solicitation of proxies from shareholders in respect of the Annual
Meeting. BEFORE MAKING ANY VOTING DECISION, INVESTORS AND SECURITY
HOLDERS ARE URGED TO READ ALL RELEVANT DOCUMENTS, INCLUDING PITNEY
BOWES’ PROXY STATEMENT AND ANY AMENDMENTS AND SUPPLEMENTS THERETO
AND THE ACCOMPANYING GOLD PROXY CARD, FILED WITH THE SEC WHEN THEY
BECOME AVAILABLE BECAUSE THEY CONTAIN, OR WILL CONTAIN, IMPORTANT
INFORMATION ABOUT PITNEY BOWES. Shareholders may obtain free copies
of the Proxy Statement and other relevant documents that Pitney
Bowes files with the SEC and on Pitney Bowes’ website at
www.pitneybowes.com or from the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov.
View source
version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230413005757/en/
Editorial - Bill Hughes Chief Communications Officer
203.351.6785
Financial - Ned Zachar, CFA VP, Investor Relations
203.614.1092
Alex Brown Senior Manager, Investor Relations 203.351.7639
Pitney Bowes (NYSE:PBI)
Historical Stock Chart
From Aug 2024 to Sep 2024
Pitney Bowes (NYSE:PBI)
Historical Stock Chart
From Sep 2023 to Sep 2024