Cano Health said on Friday that Dr Marlow Hernandez had agreed to immediately step down as CEO in an announcement made a day after the company’s annual shareholder meeting.
Hernandez, who has been CEO since 2014, will continue to serve as director.
Cano’s CEO, Mark Kent, will take over as interim CEO while the board searches for a permanent successor.
In after-hours trading, shares of Cano rallied and were trading around $1.45 per share, up 16%.
Hernandez’s removal comes after Thursday’s annual meeting, in which shareholders re-elected the directors, Dr Alan Muney and Kim Rivera. However, a significant number of shareholders declined to support Muney and Rivera, according to a statement after the meeting by President Solomon Trujillo.
A company spokesman said the counting of votes would be included in the regulatory record. As of Friday afternoon, no records have been made.
Three former directors who actively sought to remove Hernandez from the position of CEO said in a statement that 75% of shareholders voted to retain their vote instead of voting for Muney and Rivera.
Three former directors, Barry Sternlicht, a billionaire real estate investor; Dr. Lewis Gold, co-founder of Sheridan Healthcare; and Elliot Cooperstone, managing partner of InTandem Capital Partners, said Muney and Rivera only retained their seats based on what they said was Cano Health’s “classic majority voting policy”. According to a source at the company, Muney and Rivera do not require a majority of shareholders to be re-elected.
Spokespersons for the three did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
On June 9, three former directors sought to reopen the nomination window for directors by submitting preliminary orders to the Delaware Prime Minister’s Court last Friday to prevent Cano from conducting its annual meeting. of shareholders. That motion was denied.
