Houston Wire & Cable Company Provides Update on Governance, Executive Goals and Compensation, and Cost and Debt Reduction

HOUSTON, April 29, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Houston Wire & Cable Company (NASDAQ: HWCC) today provided an update on developments regarding its governance, executive goals and compensation, and cost and debt reduction measures.

Governance:

HWCC highlights recent and upcoming changes in board governance:

• As previously reported, the board elected the company’s largest shareholder, David Nierenberg of the D3 Family Funds, as a director on March 16, 2020. Nierenberg and his partner, Damon Benedict (an HWCC board observer), are helping the company navigate its response to the coronavirus pandemic and the global imbalance between the supply and demand for oil. 
• Board Chair Bill Sheffield informed the board on April 28 that he would not stand for re-election in May, 2021. 
• The board expects that Gary Yetman will succeed Sheffield as chairman, because of Yetman’s extensive experience as CEO of an industrial and commercial cable manufacturer. To smooth this succession, Yetman is expected to succeed Sheffield as chairman of the board’s Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee immediately after the 2020 annual meeting.
• Yetman is expected to stand down as Compensation Committee chairman immediately after the 2020 annual meeting, to be succeeded by Nierenberg. Nierenberg has served on public company boards since 1988 and currently serves on compensation committees for three other public companies, chairing one of them.  Nierenberg has been deeply involved in board governance for 15 years through serving on the Washington State Investment Board, chairing the advisory board of the Ira Millstein Center for Global Markets and Corporate Ownership at Columbia Law School, and chairing the Research Advisory Council for proxy advisor Glass Lewis & Company. 

2020 Annual Incentive Plan for Senior Management:

HWCC’s Compensation Committee convened on March 26 to discuss the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and the oil imbalance on the 2020 annual incentive plan (AIP) for the company’s senior management. The consensus, which the full board approved the following day, was that the original 2020 AIP performance goals had been overtaken by recent events and that the goals therefore should be replaced by two separate, new goals for “controlling the controllables”: