Orthofix International NV once again tapped a Stryker Corp. alum, appointing Michael Mainelli Jr. to its board of directors.
Mainelli is the former president of Stryker Japan and Stryker Spine. He spent eight years with the Kalamazoo, Mich.-based medical products company after being hired as vice president of business development in 1996.
Orthofix also announced the appointment this week of Kevin Unger as president of its spinal implant division. Unger spent 14 years at Stryker.
Mainelli is president and CEO of Active Implants Corp., where he also sits on the company’s board of directors.
Mainelli was appointed to the board of that Memphis-based orthopedic hip implant maker in 2008, but this past May he moved into the chief executive’s suite, replacing co-founder Stephen Bradshaw. Mainelli was charged with helping to increase the company’s valuation as well as with hitting certain clinical, regulatory and commercial results.
He got off to a good start, raising $10 million for the company in a Series C round this past June.
The addition of Mainelli could help Orthofix as it works to lower its debt and improve margins. The McKinney, Texas-based company, which has offices in Boston, posted net income of $5.9 million on sales of $137.6 million during the second quarter, up 5.8 percent and 2.3 percent, respectively, over the same period last year.
However, the company still remains heavily leveraged, with more than $260 million in long-term debt on its balance sheet.
While Orthofix has paid down some of that nut, the hefty debt load sparked a nasty proxy fight this spring when Ramius LLC, a New York-based hedge fund, accused Orthofix’s board of losing “almost a half billion dollars in market capitalization in the last three years” by taking on too much debt and missing earnings targets in 2007 and 2008.
