Circuit City Finally Capitulates (CC, BBI, GS)

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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Circuit City Stores, Inc. (NYSE: CC) has finally capitulated.  There are two separate announcements this morning, but in reality it is all part of the same issue.  This will allow the company to deal with the activist pressure, and may ultimately lead to the company either being run by a better team or become a subsidiary of another company.

The company just issued a release that it has reached an agreement with Wattles Capital Management.

Circuit City will choose three board members proposed by Wattles, and now Wattles has agreed not to solicit proxies related to the 2008 annual meeting. In addition, two of Circuit City’s current board members will step down by the annual meeting of 2009.

Circuit City has also announced that it has hired Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) in an effort to explore strategic alternatives to enhance shareholder value.  The company even agreed to allow Blockbuster Inc. (NYSE: BBI) and Carl Icahn to conduct due diligence related to its proposal to acquire the company.

Shares of Circuit City are up 11% at $5.35 in pre-market trading, and its 52-week trading range is $3.44 to $17.97.  Shareholders must be thinking, "It’s about freakin’ time."

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Jon C. Ogg
May 9, 2008

Jon Ogg is also a producer and editor of the "10 Stocks Under $10" weekly newsletter; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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