Five9 shares plunge more than 20% after CEO announces resignation

Cloud Software Provider Shares five9 closed down 25% on Monday and fell to its lowest level since March 2020 after CEO Rowan Trollope announced his resignation.

Trollope is leaving to become CEO of a venture-backed pre-IPO startup, he told the Twitter. He succeeds former Five9 CEO Mike Burkeland, who resigned as CEO in 2017 after being diagnosed with cancer. Burkeland will replace Trollope from 28 November.

“It has been an honor and a privilege to serve our employees, our customers and our shareholders,” Trollope tweeted.

Five9 provides contact center software that aims to help agents offer more efficient service over the phone and from anywhere. scaling agreed to acquire Five9 in mid-2021 in an all-stock purchase worth $14.7 billion after both companies’ shares soared amid the pandemic with people across the country working from home.

However, Five9 shareholders were unhappy with the small premium Zoom had to pay and ultimately rejected the deal. Investor appetite for cloud stocks has since collapsed as rising interest rates and inflation concerns, combined with the reopening of many offices, have changed the industry’s short-term trajectory.

Five9 has lost more than 70% of its value since the stock peaked in August 2021. Zoom is more than 85% below its late-2020 high.

Trollope, who was a senior executive at Cisco before taking over at Five9 in 2018, said the company is still in a “great position” and he remains optimistic about its ability to “handle the future.”

WATCHING: Five9’s CEO discusses the company’s voice recognition software