In a pair of federal filings this week, a Roanoke-based tech company announced a new chief executive as it affirmed that efforts to sell the company might make his tenure short.
Kevin Ilcisin will become president and CEO on Aug. 1, according to a filing Tuesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Ilcisin, 59, has been a top consultant to the embattled fiber-optic sensing company since April. Luna’s former top leader, Scott Graeff, retired the month before, following the company’s disclosure that earnings reporting discrepancies had caused it to indefinitely delay annual and quarterly reports.
[Disclosure: Quinn Graeff, who is married to Scott Graeff, is a member of the Cardinal Productions Inc. board of directors. The Graeffs are also contributors to Cardinal News. Neither board members nor donors have any influence or say in news decisions; see our policy.]
Richard Roedel, the company’s longtime board chair, had stepped in as interim executive director and interim president after Graeff, but the company announced last week that he, too, was leaving, citing health reasons.
Luna will pay Ilcisin $100,000 a month, a short-term deferred compensation of $33,330 a month and a potential bonus of up to $792,000 annually, according to the offer letter that Luna filed with the SEC.
The company also filed news of a loan agreement on Tuesday, with a caveat that Luna move toward a sale. The loan, with principal of up to $15 million, will come from White Hat Capital Partners, which invested $50 million in Luna in December, about three months before Luna reported accounting errors and unreliable financial statements dating to 2022. Since then, Luna has faced lawsuits from some of its investors and is in jeopardy of being delisted from the Nasdaq Stock Market.
Luna drew $9 million on July 19, the closing date, and can draw up to $3 million more on the loan beginning Aug. 16. The remaining amount will be available on Oct. 1, “in each case, subject to, among other conditions, the Company’s continued pursuit of a Sale Transaction, as defined in the Loan Agreement,” the SEC filing states.
The company went public with its consideration of a possible sale or merger in May, when it announced that it had found that Graeff had engaged in conduct that constituted “cause” under his contract. Luna canceled his severance payments and took back stock from him. Graeff told Cardinal News at the time that in his 20 years with the company, “I strived to ensure each and every decision I made, and my conduct as a leader, was consistent with my values.”
Ilcisin is co-founder and president of advisory firm Juniper Strategies. He came on in April with a second consultant, Alex Davern, when Luna contracted his company for consulting services at $125,000 a month. Under a revised agreement, Luna will pay Juniper $62,500 in August and September, and $31,250 per month beginning Oct. 1. Davern will stay on.
Luna’s stock price on the Nasdaq, in general decline since the March news, dropped from $2.74 to $2.66 per share on Wednesday.
Comments are closed.