(Bloomberg) -- Activist investor Ancora Holdings Group is calling for the sale of Everbridge Inc., arguing the software company could fetch as much as $70 a share in a sale -- almost double its current value. 

Ancora, which owns a 4% stake in Everbridge, also urged the company not to hire a new chief executive officer after the departure of David Meredith in December. Ancora said in a letter Thursday to the company’s board that doing so would only serve as a distraction and introduce instability at a time when it should be pursuing a sale. 

“It is obvious to us that Everbridge is a high-quality business that remains dramatically undervalued,” Ancora’s Frederick DiSanto and James Chadwick said in the letter, a copy of which was reviewed by Bloomberg News. “Unfortunately, we have no confidence that this value will be unlocked by the current management team or board, which we feel are principally responsible for years of mismanagement and value destruction.” 

Shares in Everbridge have fallen 74% in the past year, including a 47% drop in December after the CEO Meredith resigned and several analysts downgraded the stock. The shares rose 7.7% to $36.59 on Wednesday, giving the company a market value of about $1.4 billion.

A representative for Everbridge didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Everbridge, based in Burlington, Massachusetts, provides a platform for handling critical events like severe weather, active shootings, terrorist attacks and critical equipment failures, according to its website. 

Turnover

Ancora commended the company for expanding its offering over the years through acquisitions and becoming the market leader along the way. But it said it had concerns about how much the company is underperforming its peers, its operational performance, and that it’s chasing increasingly expensive and less-focused targets. 

It also said it was concerned about the amount of turnover in Everbridge’s senior ranks, with six of the top 13 executives involved in its 2018 analyst-day presentation having left since then. Ancora also raised concerns about the lack of shares held by the board, and that its chairman, Jaime Ellertson, appears to be poaching executives from the company for his own personal business ventures.

The Cleveland-based activist fund criticized both of Everbridge’s interim co-CEOs. It said the mergers and acquisition strategy under Chief Financial Officer Patrick Brickley, one of the co-CEOs, has become undisciplined. The other co-CEO, Chief Revenue Officer Vernon Irvin, seems to have fumbled execution in countless areas, including lackluster deal activity in the federal sector, Ancora said.

“The issues the company is facing are not structural, but rather self-inflicted due to incompetent leadership that has failed to execute,” DiSanto and Chadwick said. “We believe that, operated by a capable team, Everbridge will be able to rectify its current issues and recapture a trajectory of durable growth.”

The pair contends hiring a new CEO won’t resolve those problems and the best path forward is a sale. Several financial and strategic buyers would be interested in the company, which could sell for $70 a share based on the multiples in comparable deals, they said. 

Founded in 2003, Ancora has agitated for changes at other companies including Kohl’s Corp. and Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. Earlier this week, the firm called on vehicle-salvage auction company, IAA Inc., to fire its CEO or sell the company to improve shareholder returns. 

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