Former Director Bill Pulte Asks PulteGroup Board to Implement Proper Succession Planning

Management Issues Highlight Need for Board Oversight in Succession Planning

ATLANTA, April 24, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Bill Pulte, the homebuilding heir of founding family of Fortune 500 PulteGroup Inc, issued the following statement urging the board of directors of PulteGroup Inc to take certain actions related to improper conduct by its management:

"The most important thing a Board does is succession planning - it is therefore critical to shareholders that the PulteGroup Board ensure this next COO be widely respected as someone who can credibly succeed the current CEO, if and when needed. Any structure that is uniquely dependent on one individual is a tenuous structure that often relies upon loyalty pledges to the CEO, instead of great talent in the COO position," said former PulteGroup Director Bill Pulte.

Pulte continued, "As a result of the top 3 of 5 executives being recently terminated or in public controversy, it is critical that the Board manage Ryan Marshall in hiring a COO who can properly function and replace the CEO in the event something happens to him or otherwise. Talent retention is also critical, and to this point, two highly respected PulteGroup area presidents, Scott Wright and Steve Teodecki, should be recruited back to PulteGroup!"

As reported in the news media, incoming COO Brandon Jones ran a series of fake (or "bot") accounts to attack the Pulte Family. Jones' actions are now the subject of multiple lawsuits. Shortly after, PulteGroup terminated a 2nd executive Michelle Hairston, who had oversight over Jones' activities and subsequent investigation.  Also, a 3rd executive was caught up with Todd Sheldon deleting his personal Twitter account after the Pulte Family notified the board of directors of Jones's behavior.

Pulte's specific recommendations on new COO to the Board of Directors:

• No loyalty tests or pledges from COO to CEO, or from any other executives to the CEO. Officers work for the shareholders, period!
• Hire outside for independence or only qualified area presidents, no one connected to Brandon Jones.
• Some have passed up the position. This is not a good sign.
• Must be a board decision, not CEO decision in light of his failures.

"Right now, PulteGroup's profits are built in large part by employees outside of the senior management team and with layoffs and buybacks. A new COO would ensure the company could get itself back to #1 by letting the field operators return to delighting the customer and building competent managers. The Company should implement the full Pulte Plan as recommended by founder William J. Pulte in his last battle cleaning the company wherein CEO Dugas was ousted for mismanagement," added a Pulte Family spokesman.

About Bill Pulte

William J. "Bill" Pulte is the CEO of Pulte Capital Partners, a buyout firm focused on acquiring and building homebuilding, housing, and building products companies. Mr. Pulte served as a Director of PulteGroup from 2016-2020. Prior to his board role at PulteGroup, Mr. Pulte led the turnaround of 2016, where Mr. Pulte brought in Elliott Management and secured the removal of then-CEO Dugas. The turnaround led to a 4 year period of 30% per year stock price appreciation. Mr. Pulte is also well known as Twitter's biggest philanthropist with over 3.2 million followers on Twitter and 1.7 million on Instagram.

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SOURCE The Pulte Family