 |
Since then, the B2B software market has become more difficult for Verticalnet, founded in 1995 by Michael Hagan of NutriSystem Inc. (NASDAQ: NTRI). Large businesses are driving harder bargains with technology companies, demanding free or reduced-rates on services in exchange for signing contracts. Software giants such as Oracle Corp. (NASDAQ: ORCL) have grown stronger through acquisitions. Verticalnet's stock, which once topped $9,500 at the height of the dotcom bubble in 2000, has plunged more than 50 percent this year alone and closed yesterday at 49 cents per share. It now facing possible delisting from the Nasdaq. Lentz's own performance-based pay of $380,000 was to be cut by about 8 percent, to $350,000 this year.
But all is not lost. The company reported to the SEC today that it has grasped a lifeline from "certain investors." They are not identified other than stating they were purchasers of private Class B preferred shares. But there was at least one condition: Cut back Lentz even deeper. So the board led by Gregory G. Schott and Lentz have now whacked Lentz's salary down to $300,000, a reduction of 21 percent. His two-year contract no longer has an option for one-year renewals and it expires in 2009.
An unceremonious decline for the 44-year-old Stanford M.B.A. graduate and Chestnut Hill resident. In an interview with The Inquirer ($ required) in the more optimistic days of 2005, Lentz had the sober tone of a dotcom survivor. His marketing director David Kaplan likened Verticalnet to the hard luck fictional boxer Rocky, saying "We're not to the top of the Art Museum steps yet, but we're no longer drowning in the Schuylkill." Maybe time to don those swimming trunks, again.
