With the feud between Arthur T. Demoulas and his three sisters headed to mediation next month, key allies of the longtime Market Basket CEO have been cashiered out.
Bill Shea, the final remaining ally of Demoulas on the company’s board of directors, was removed earlier this month by sisters Caren, Frances and Glorianne, who together hold a controlling share of their family’s grocery company.
Then, last week, the company successfully sought a court order barring two former company executives from going onto any Market Basket property after they visited several locations following their firing in July. The executives, Tom Gordon and Joe Schmidt, are aligned with Demoulas and were placed on leave alongside him in May before they were dismissed outright.
The discord boiled over publicly in May, when Demoulas, 70, was placed on leave by his sisters – who had sided with him in the power struggle a decade ago – under accusations that he was planning a work stoppage amid growing tension over succession and financial decisions at the company.
Shea, in a statement, has claimed he was ousted for demanding proof of those claims from his fellow board members, Steven Collins, Jay Hachigian and Michael Keyes. His departure leaves only those three, all appointed by the sisters within the last several years, on the board.
“I think it is clear that the main reason I was removed was that I was exercising my right as a board member to demand information on what the basis of these allegations against Arthur was, particularly about the supposed work stoppage,” Shea said. “That’s not a threat, it’s a duty that I had – to get to the bottom of why they had so publicly decapitated this incredibly successful company.”
A Massachusetts court barred Gordon and Schmidt from Market Basket properties after the board said they visited around two dozen stores and trespassed at the company’s corporate headquarters. Those visits featured stops across southern New Hampshire, including visits by Schmidt to the two stores near downtown Concord, on August 6, court records show.
Collins described their appearances as intended to “to intimidate our associates and disrupt company operations” in a statement following the August 14 order.
Gordon and Schmidt have denied that depiction but, in siding with the company, the court determined that their presence at Market Basket stores would violate no-trespass notices and posed potential harm.
The mounting hostility comes as mediation between Demoulas and his sisters approaches.
When Demoulas was placed on leave, the board of directors initiated an investigation by the law firm Quinn Emanuel into the claim that he was organizing a work stoppage to secure his position. That investigation is wrapping up, and on September 3 mediation is scheduled to begin between the family grocery company and the CEO who holds a 28% share in it.