2 Best Buy Directors Resign

Best Buy announced that two of its board directors resigned, one of whom was its former chief executive. It happened almost seven months after its founder left the board. The Best Buy board will now have four vacancies.

The company’s revenues have been dropping because consumers use its big box stores as showrooms for products they end up buying online at Amazon.com and other online retail stores. Best Buy said that G. Mike Mikan, who once served as interim CEO between April and September 2012 after its former CEO Brian Dunn was found to have improper relationship with a female employee, resigned from the board effective immediately.

Mikan left Best Buy to be president of Edward Lampert’s hedge fund ESL Investments Inc. Lampert is the chairman of another retailer, Sears Holding Corp., which is on a turnaround campaign itself. He said that Mikan will be a great asset to him and ESL’s portfolio companies.

Mikan spent 14 years at UnitedHealth Group Inc., where he served as executive vice president and chief financial officer. He was also CEO of its Optum subsidiary. He became a director at Best Buy in 2008. He was the Best Buy CEO when Richard Schulze, former chairman and founder, lost his chairmanship after he was help responsible for failing to notify the board about the claims against Dunn. He resigned from the board in June.

In August, Schulze informed the board that he was interested in teaming up with private equity partners to buy Best Buy but he has yet to tender a solid offer and the board gave him until February 28 to submit one.

Schulze is still Best Buy’s largest shareholder with around one-fifth of the company’s outstanding shares but it is now headed by turnaround expert Hubert Joly, who was task to come up with an ew restructuring plan.

Matthew Paull is the other director who will depart from the Best Buy Board. He is set to retire in Arpil 2013.