A decent amount of negative news for Nuance has come out over the last several weeks ranging from stock prices now at a 52-week low to executives selling off tens of thousands of personal shares.
Benzinga.com reported the stock is at a 52-weeks low (click to read).
The following executives were among those dumping stock:
- Director Robert Frankenberg: 5,703 shares for about $852,000
- VP Communications Adam Bruce Bowden: 10,494 shares for about $142,000
- Chief Accounting Officer Daniel David Tempesta: 6,183 shares for about $88,000
Other negative press about Nuance ranges from comments that Nuance executives are overpaid given the company’s performance over the past year or two to ongoing rumors that Apple may look to acquire Nuance, possibly for their voice recognition technology used in their Siri products.
If Apple ever did acquire Nuance it would be interesting to see what becomes of the document/business products group that has acquired some of the bigger names in our industry over the last few years including eCopy, Equitrac and others. Maybe Apple would sell or spin that group off. The upside of such a spin-off would be that the company would be focused on B2B. The downside would be the loss of the deep pockets they currently enjoy being under the Nuance brand.
At the moment, Nuance is projecting a terrible forthcoming quarter, which is why shares are sliding so much.