A shareholder that built up a 9% stake in Irvine’s Autobytel Inc. to spur changes at the online auto marketer has sold off most of its shares.
Palo Alto-based Liberate Technologies, a onetime cable TV software maker and now little more than an over-the-counter ticker symbol, has cut its Autobytel stake to 2.3%, according to a recent Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
In July, Liberate had a 9% stake and planned to talk with the company’s management about Autobytel’s “undervalued” shares.
At the time, Liberate said it could seek to buy more shares and may “formulate plans or proposals that relate to, might result in, or have the purpose or effect of changing or influencing control of” Autobytel.
Those plans would seem to be dead in light of Liberate’s sell-off of shares. The company sold most of its Autobytel stock this month.
Autobytel, which links online car shoppers with dealers, has seen a restatement of financial results, management changes and the prospect of a sale of the company in recent years.
Last year, Autobytel hired Merrill Lynch & Co. to pursue a sale but dropped the effort earlier this year.
Liberate Technologies once made software for cable companies and was hit by accounting problems in 2002 that led to fraud charges against its executives.
In early 2005, Liberate sold most of its operations for $82 million to a venture of Comcast Corp. and Cox Communications Inc.
Liberate’s largest shareholder is Chicago hedge fund manager Coghill Capital Management LLC. Coghill also owns a 10% stake in Autobytel, making it the company’s largest shareholder.
