It’s been a punishing two weeks for Comscore, the company that seeks to compete with Nielsen for TV consumption data and ratings analysis.
After a big plunge on Wall Street tied to the loss of two key C-Suiters, dip after dip was seen. On Monday, SCOR was finally up.
With 30 minutes left in Monday’s trading session, Comscore was up 2.1% to $13.40.
That’s good news for a battered stock, which ended March at $20.25 a share after an early March run past $23 a share.
It may take a while for Comscore to return to that price level.
With a 1-year target estimate at $24.80 and shares down nearly $10 a share in the last 30 days, Comscore now faces at least three class action lawsuits filed in a New York Federal District Court by law firms representing shareholders who purchased SCOR shares between November 8, 2018 and March 29, 2019.
The class action lawsuits seek to recover damages against Defendants for alleged violations of the federal securities laws under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.
The lawsuits focus on the resignations of Wiener and Hofstetter, and how Comscore concurrently revealed that it expects first quarter 2019 revenue to be between $100 million and $104 million, compared to previous estimate of $106 million in revenue.
This triggered a 28% drop in Comscore’s stock value during intraday trading on April 1, and the law firms argue that its shareholder clients suffered a loss.
The Friday filings led The Schall Law Firm of Los Angeles to open its own investigation on behalf of Comscore shareholders.
In the evening hours of March 31, it first became known that change was amiss at Comscore, the audience measurement and data analytics company.
The company revealed “enhancements to its board of directors and senior management team” to enable its next phase of growth. This was Comscore’s way of confirming that both CEO Bryan Wiener and President Sarah Hofstetter had resigned.
Wiener wasn’t shy about the matter, using LinkedIn to cite “irreconcilable differences” between him and Comscore’s Board of Directors “over how to execute the company’s strategy.” Hofstetter also vented on LinkedIn, saying, “Given Bryan had differences with the Board over how to execute the company’s strategy, and the two of us were aligned on the plan, I have made the decision to resign.”
