InfoGroup CEO Bill Fairfield will step down when the sale of the company to CCMP Capital Advisors is finalized, according to an internal company memo. He will be replaced by Clare Hart.
Hart most recently served as president of the Enterprise Media Group at Dow Jones, as well as an executive VP at the company. She ended her 25-year term with Dow Jones in January as part of a restructuring, according to a Dow Jones statement.
Her unit, the Enterprise Media Group included Dow Jones Newswires, Factiva, Indexes, Client Solutions and Financial Information Services.
Fairfield’s position at infoGroup had been tenuous since the start of the year, when the company amended its employment agreement with him. Under the terms of the revised agreement, Fairfield’s employment is currently on an automatically renewing quarter-by-quarter basis, with both parties able to terminate it.
“I have indicated to [CCMP Capital] that I will assist in the transition for as long as needed,” Fairfield wrote in his memo to infoGroup’s staff.
All this assumes that the deal will go through. As reported yesterday, two shareholder groups have voiced concerns about what they feel was a lower-than-desire sale price (“InfoGroup Shareholders Accuse Board of Selling Cheap”, http://www.directmag.com/news/infogroup-stonerise-sale-0412/).
The two groups, board, Stonerise Capital Partners and Hotchkis and Wiley Capital Management, own a total of around 8.5% of the company’s stock. Founder and former CEO and chairman Vinod C. Gupta owns 35%, and has endorsed the sale.
