After two of his competitors merged in 2010, he compared it to a "woolly mammoth dating a dinosaur." He once described a rival executive, former Allscripts CEO Glen Tullman, as a "symbol of atrophy."
Bush, is known in the health-care world for speaking his mind and for lightening the mood at industry events with pithy on-stage quotes. An industry antagonistĪs the battled waged on with Elliott and his public image suffered, Bush said he was told by crisis communications experts to keep quiet.īush, the cousin of former president George W. Elliott declined to comment for this story. However, Bush said he suspects that Elliott was behind the negative media reports about Athena's culture and his personal behavior. He also says he got phone calls from other executives warning him of the "lengths these guys would go" to win.īush doesn't have any evidence that Elliott was responsible for digging up the dirt, and the firm denied to the New Yorker having any involvement in it. While Bush acknowledges that activist investors can help companies operate more efficiently, his memories of the period are brimming with difficult personal experiences, including being suspiciously photographed while on a walk with a former female colleague in a park. Elliott told the magazine that there was a compelling argument about why Bush shouldn't be running the company. Media reports came out about the company's work hard, play hard culture and the drinking that sometimes occurred at corporate parties.Įlliott presented a 45-page critique of Bush's leadership to the board of directors, according to the New Yorker, including anonymous comments from employees and a slide that included photos from Bush's Instagram account during a recent sailing trip, juxtaposed with drops in the company's stock price. Once Elliott got involved, Bush says his mistakes became more apparent - and in unflattering ways. It's a great business to own." An activist could look at it and see, "R&D and marketing spend going up but the stock isn't," he said.
"We had a flat stock for over three years. Meanwhile, research and development costs at AthenaHealth jumped 21% in 2016 and another 29% in 2017, outpacing revenue growth, which was in the teens. Investors pointed to the stock price, which was hardly moving, while the S&P 500 was going up and the Nasdaq was rallying even more. "It's acrimonious and there's fear about what's being written down." "Suddenly they are meeting three times a week," Bush said. Elliott took a 9.2% stake in the company and said there were opportunities to "maximize shareholder value." Bush and the board responded by making cuts to improve efficiency, an approach he later compared to operating with a "gun to your head" and regretted because of the harmful effects it had on employee morale and company culture.īoard meetings also became tense, unpleasant and way too frequent. The woman told Bloomberg that she regretted filing the complaint.īush said his job began changing in mid-2017 after he got a call from an Elliott employee, who said there were problems with the business that were weighing on the stock price. In particular, Bloomberg published a story about past domestic violence allegations, as well as an accusation that he "engaged in highly inappropriate conduct" with an employee at a banquet in 2005, according to a complaint that was filed in Massachusetts. His final days at AthenaHealth were dark, not just because he was being pushed out by an investor that was intent on cutting costs through layoffs, but also as allegations of bad behavior began to surface. Over the course of several recent interviews with CNBC, Bush recounted the saga and talked about his expectations for the future of health care.
Having been out of action for over a year, Bush is starting to open up about his painful experience losing his company to activist hedge fund Elliott, the same firm that's now trying to push through major changes at AT&T.
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