Comverse (CMVT) Volatile Following Appointment of Tartavull, Chairman Letter

Comverse Technology (Nasdaq: CMVT) shares are seeing some activity on gobs of volume Tuesday.

On Monday, the company announced that Philippe Tartavull will be assuming the CEO position of Comverse Technology's subsidiary, Comverse, Inc. Following the announcement, Chairman and CEO Charles J. Burdick issued a letter to shareholders.

Some of the highlights:

• With the hiring of a new CEO, we are also turning our attention to the structure of the new CNS Board. Although we believe that some continuity is important initially, we expect to have discussions with our major shareholders on the composition of the new Board, including the desirable qualities of potential new director candidates.
  
  
• We decided to expedite the spin-off of CNS as opposed to pursuing other possible options because, in our judgment, other options are constrained by structural complexity, uncertain timing and speculative value.
  
  
• [The best way to maximize shareholder value is an] outright sale of Verint as a whole to a financial or strategic buyer, the merger of CMVT and Verint in a transaction that gives CMVT shareholders direct ownership of Verint shares and that compensates them for relinquishing control of Verint, or a sale of the CMVT holding company itself to a third party interested in control and ultimately full ownership of Verint.

On the filings, Comverse implied volatility is up 6.8 percent and 177 percent better than its historical average.

Shares are 2.6 percent better on the session with volume of 6.8 million shares well over three-times the trailing daily average. Also of note, shares are holding above the 50-day moving average, currently calculated at $6.42.

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