Electronic medical records company Allscripts (NSDQ:MDRX) is struggling to recover from a Wall Street dive after news of a CEO swap and decision to stop pursuing a possible sale send shares tumbling this week.
The Chicago-based company announced that it fired long-time CEO Glen Tullman, replacing him with Paul Black, former COO for Cerner Corp., who was already a member of the board of directors.
In conjunction with the swap, Allscripts also announced that the board had "concluded its evaluation of strategic alternatives" and decided that the company was no longer for sale.
The news preceded a heavy drop in MDRX shares, which fell 14.6% from an open of $10.70 Wednesday morning to close at $9.14 last night, where they stayed today.
The news came as a surprise to some who were hedging bets on an acquisition. Earlier this month rumors circulated that the Blackstone Group was leading a bidding war for Allscripts, but that the companies were having trouble coming to terms on a sale price.
Allscripts had also received offers from private equity firms such as the Carlyle Group and Silver Lake Management, according to Bloomberg.
New CEO Black was upbeat about the transition, telling analysts on a conference call this week that the company will "benefit from having clarity."
"There’s been a lot of disruption in the marketplace from people wanting to understand what this company was going to look like by the end of the year, a lot of people who were hesitant about making a decision," Black said. "I think that’s a very big piece of the missteps during the course of the year."