The father-and-son shareholder group that last year convinced the board at Cambridge Heart Inc. to scrap staggered terms for directors sold a large block of its stock in the cardiac diagnostics company.
Fort Lee, N.J.-based AFB Fund, managed by Louis Blumberg, unloaded 1.7 million shares in recent days, pocketing about $136,000, according to an Aug. 17 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund now owns about 2.9 million Cambridge Heart shares, equal to a 4.5-percent stake, down from a 5.9 million-share peak in June 2008.
Louis Blumberg formed AFB as a family investment vehicle and is the father of Dr. Laurence Blumberg, a former director and executive in charge of business development at Cambridge Heart. The younger Blumberg — who boasts an Ivy League MBA in addition to his medical degree from Temple — also has been a significant shareholder in the company, even before its August 1996 initial public offering.
Their efforts to shake up Cambridge Heart’s board of directors began early last year, culminating with a May 19, 2008 agreement to eliminate staggered board terms. The deal, ratified by shareholders two months ago, also slapped a four-year limit on board terms in exchange for Louis Blumberg filling a newly created seat on the board and dropping a proxy fight to unseat an existing board member.
His stay was short, however. Louis Blumberg quit the board less than three weeks later, explaining in a June 5 resignation letter that after meeting with other board members and learning of their “contemplated direction” for the company, “I do not wish to remain a member of the board of directors going forward.”
Laurence Blumberg earlier in the year had given up the board seat he’d held since 1996.
Cambridge Heart produces the HearTWave II System, a non-invasive test measuring changes in heartbeat patterns that can indicate ventricular arrhythmia. Sales of the device reached $531,000 during the three months ended June 30, a 4 percent rise over year-ago levels.