A long-simmering Hollywood proxy battle got uglier yesterday when movie studio Lions Gate bashed takeover target Image Entertainment for a variety of offenses and asked shareholders to boot out the current board of directors.
In a letter to Image’s shareholders, Lions Gate said it is “taking action to protect shareholder interests” and slammed Image’s own strategic process headed by investment bank Lazard as a “sham.”
Lions Gate is urging Image shareholders to dump the board of directors, describing the performance of the company – whose share price has dropped close to 40 percent since the beginning of 2005 – as “abysmal.”
An Image spokesman said the company would likely respond by the end of the week.