Josef Mandelbaum to step down as Perion CEO

Joseph Mandelbaum

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The move follows a campaign by Ronen Shilo, who owns 11.6% of Perion Network, for changes in itsboard and management.

The battle at Perion Network Ltd. (Nasdaq:PERI: TASE:PERI) has been decided. The company announced today that Josef Mandelbaum will step down as CEO after a transition period of a few months.

Perion Network provides distribution and monetization solution for software and application developers.

Ronen Shilo, who holds 11.6% of Perion, conducted an open campaign against the company's management, claiming that the board to directors had failed in its duty to the shareholders. He claimed that the board had agreed that Mandelbaum should be replaced but had taken no action on the matter.

Perion chairman Alan Gelman said in a statement, "On behalf of the entire board, I want to thank Josef for his devoted leadership and contributions to Perion. Josef took a small one-product company with $29 million of annual revenue and turned it into a global company with diversified revenues of over $300 million. After six years, the company and Josef decided that it is the right time to transition to new leadership and focus on moving the business forward and increasing shareholder value. I am confident our search will yield a strong candidate to lead Perion on its next phase of growth and we sincerely wish Josef all the best in all his future endeavors.”

Mandelbaum himself said, "I am proud of what we have accomplished to date and very grateful for the opportunity to work with such amazing people at the company. I want to thank the employees and directors of Perion, past and present, for helping make Perion a great company and a place to call home these past six years. Together, despite many external challenges, we built a company with significant revenues and strong EBITDA. Equally important, we built a culture of warmth and caring both internally and for the community at large.

"While we have made good progress on executing our strategy, the board and I understand that to truly move the business forward, a change is needed. This change will allow the company to focus on the future, give it time to execute without distractions and deliver increased shareholder value. I have full confidence in management and the employees and know that they will succeed."

In the past few years, Perion has been attempting to diversify its business to cope with the decline in its traditional business, Internet search, in which it is highly dependent on collaboration with the search engine giants.

Shilo, who became a Perion shareholder in 2013 when the company merged with the toolbar division of Conduit, of which he was a co-founder, seeks to change the way in which directors are replaced at Perion, with the aim of making changes in the way the company is run. Shilo has a paper loss of over $100 million on the shares he received in the merger.