Activist investor continues to pressure Carver in NY after annual meeting

Dream Chasers Capital continues to pressure Carver Bancorp after the New York company narrowly prevailed in a proxy battle with the activist investor.

Carver said last week that its two director candidates received more votes than those presented by Dream Chasers, with less than 7,400 votes separating the second- and third-place votes.

Dream Chasers, however, is taking issue with a decision made at the annual meeting to hold voting open for 45 additional minutes, speculating that Carver used the time to drum up votes from larger institutional investors.

The activist investor claimed in a press release that about 70% of the company’s retail shareholders support its candidates.

“We believe that the strong response from retail shareholders demands action from the Board,” Greg Lewis, Dream Chasers’ CEO, said in the release. ” Chief Executive Officer of Dream Chasers.  “If the preliminary results that Carver disclosed are accurate, then our nominees received essentially the same amount of votes as the sitting directors.  Carver should do the right thing by appointing our excellent, qualified, and shareholder-supported nominees to the board.”

In a separate letter to new Carver CEO Donald Felix, Lewis requested real-time voting totals between 9 am and noon on the day of the meeting. He is also seeking a “full accounting of any high-pressure sales calls” made to large shareholders, including “any offers, promises or assurances provided to shareholders to sway their vote.”

Dream Chasers has been pressuring Carver to sell it a large minority stake, which it hopes to leverage to reconstitute the management team and board.