Founder William Pulte Makes Headlines with Activist Campaign at PulteGroup Inc.

Bloomberg, CNBC, Builder and other media sources have reported that William J. Pulte, the founder and largest shareholder of PulteGroup Inc., retained Olshan Frome Wolosky LLP to assist him in his shareholder activism quest at the company he founded but is no longer running. Media commented that the retention of activist counsel marks a new point of escalation in Mr. Pulte’s campaign to oust the Company’s CEO, Richard J. Dugas Jr. Mr. Pulte recently wrote a letter to the PulteGroup’s Board of Directors criticizing CEO Dugas for his poor performance and operational inexperience, seeking his immediate resignation as CEO and director. CEO Dugas has previously announced that he will resign but not until May 2017 causing Mr. Pulte to sharply criticize the Board for allowing a “lame duck” CEO to remain at the helm of the company. More recently, former CEO and Board member James Grosfeld resigned from the Board of Directors stating that current Board members were not being “responsive to the needs of shareholders”. Shares of PulteGroup have fallen 20 percent in the past year, compared with a 7 percent decline in the S&P’s Supercomposite Homebuilding Index. Steve Wolosky represent Mr. Pulte in his activist campaign at PulteGroup.