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An Anonymous Coward writes:

The New York based activist investor Clinton Group is on a roll this week. First, they have steered former 3M magnetic/optical media spinoff Imation into selling its Oakdale, Minnesota headquarters for $11.5 million [theregister.co.uk], along with selling the Memorex trademark for $9.4 million. Additionally, Clinton Group has set up a "Strategic Alternatives Committee" within Imation, a committee which "has been tasked with examining opportunities to deploy Imation’s excess cash and developing initiatives for strategic value creation."

Meanwhile, Clinton Group has also been hounding flash storage vendor Violin, threatening to recommend candidates for the Board of Directors, and this week, they have announced their candidates [theregister.co.uk]: two "turnaround specialists" from the storage industry (Ralph Schmitt, who sold OCZ to Toshiba, and Michael Wall, who sold Amplidata to Western Digital), and Alex Spiro, who is "an attorney at Brafman and Associates, faculty member of Harvard Law School, and member of the board of directors of Imation." Later on January 11, Violin CEO Kevin DeNuccio issued a statement [theregister.co.uk] to counter the board candidates, asserting that "Violin's management team and board collectively own six percent of the company," and "Our Board of Directors currently consist of 6 current or former CEO/COOs and senior executives from storage industry legacy leaders." Since both sides have fired shots, we now have a proxy war, and with Violin's financial history, this likely won't end with a Dell-esque billion-dollar savior swooping in to save the day. Violin's stock opened at $7.41 in IPO in September 2013 [techcrunch.com] (after an offer price of $9), but stands at an all-time low of $0.73 today.

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