A Tile Shop shareholder accused founder Robert Rucker of tanking its shares so he could retake control of the 142-store chain.
The shareholder, a New York hedge fund called Wynnefield Capital, asked a court to stop the Plymouth-based company from delisting itself from the Nasdaq Stock Market on Friday.
The delisting is a pivotal step for Rucker, who is 67, to take back the control of Tile Shop that he lost when the company went public seven years ago, the firm said in the lawsuit.
Tile Shop's announcement on Oct. 22 that it would delist, a step sometimes called "going dark," caused its shares to plunge 68% that day. In the weeks since, Rucker and two of the company's directors, Peter Jacullo III and Peter Kamin, bought up shares to raise their combined stake in the firm to over 40%.
"The Tile Shop board, comprised of a majority of directors who are directly benefiting from the go-dark scheme or are loyal to Rucker, Jacullo and Kamin, is actively breaching its fiduciary duties," Wynnefield Capital said in the lawsuit. "Immediate judicial intervention is warranted."
Tile Shop did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.
Wynnefield Capital typically invests in small-cap stocks and purchased 80,000 shares of Tile Shop earlier this year when they were worth about $320,000, according to Thomson Reuters.
Beyond stopping Rucker and seeking financial penalties, Wynnefield's intentions for Tile Shop are unclear. A spokesman didn't respond to a request for comment. Tile Shop is one of the smallest holdings in Wynnefield's $200 million portfolio. Its stake is a fraction of 1% of Tile Shop's nearly 51 million outstanding shares.