Twists and turns in FNZ court case

Summit Partners, the only institutional plaintiff in the class action against FNZ ,have withdrawn, UK publication Money Marketing reports.

The impact of its sudden departure from the proceedings, which have been filed in the New Zealand courts, remains unclear.

Meanwhile FNZ employee shareholders have put out a press release questioning the actions of FNZ's chairman (who they don’t name) and private equity firm Motive Partners.

The release says this follows a year of “alleged relentless executive turnover, unprecedented increases in expenditure to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars and repeated failure to deliver on the strategy introduced by the private equity firm Motive Partners.”

An unnamed spokesperson for the employee shareholders, said “the chairman must be held accountable for the alleged lack of governance that has allowed this private equity firm to take control of the management of the company and, presumably, all flow of information to the board.”

"We've lost all the leadership and knowledge that built FNZ to date, but it still needs to continue to build and grow as a growth company. In its place, we have Motive Partners with no relevant experience in actually building companies, let alone building technology companies.

"In addition, Motive's recent investment in several direct competitors of FNZ raises the question of what Motive's agenda really is.

"Overwhelmingly private equity investors would avoid such conflicts in their portfolio companies."

FNZ's employee shareholders allege decisions made by the board favour institutional and private equity stakeholders, over employee shareholders.

FNZ declined to comment on the employee shareholder's press release.