After a buyout proposal was rejected by shareholders last week, Atlantic Coast Financial Corp. said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Thursday that President and CEO G. Thomas Frankland is resigning.
The Jacksonville-based banking company also said that three members of its board of directors have decided not to stand for re-election. Former Atlantic Coast Financial Chairman Jay Sidhu, who opposed the buyout, had already said he intended to nominate three new candidates to the board at the company's annual shareholders meeting.
Frankland's resignation is effective July 1. Atlantic Coast Financial said that Chief Financial Officer Thomas Wagers was appointed interim president and CEO, as the board of directors searches for a permanent replacement.
Atlantic Coast Financial's board voted 7-2 in February to accept a buyout offer from Bond Street Holdings Inc. for $5 a share. Under the merger plan, the company's Atlantic Coast Bank unit would have merged into Bond Street's Fort Lauderdale-based bank, Florida Community Bank.
Sidhu, who remains on the board, was one of the directors voting against the deal and publicly opposed it. At a special shareholders meeting last Tuesday, stockholders rejected the buyout by a vote of 1.04 million shares to 846,357.
Sidhu said the Bond Street offer undervalued Atlantic Coast Financial, and he has instead proposed a plan to raise additional capital and keep the bank independent.
Thursday's SEC filing said that Atlantic Coast Financial's annual meeting is now scheduled for Aug. 16. At the meeting, the three candidates proposed by Sidhu, John Dolan, Kevin Champagne and Dave Bhasin, will stand for election to the board.
Both Dolan and Champagne are former bank CEOs.
Current Atlantic Coast Financial directors Charles Martin, Forrest Sweat and Thomas Beeckler have decided not to stand for re-election, so there appears to be nothing standing in the way of Sidhu's nominees.
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