NEW YORK (Legal Newsline) - Attorneys at Bernstein Litowitz are representing a Florida city's public pension fund in shareholder litigation against Vertiv Holdings.
The City of Riviera Beach General Employees' Retirement System filed a class action lawsuit May 3 in New York federal court, also naming J.P. Morgan Securities, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup Global Markets, among others, as defendants.
It's Riviera Beach's fourth such lawsuit. It has sued Mylan, Macquarie Infrastructure and Royal Caribbean Cruises since 2015, and it and Bernstein Litowitz are currently pursuing appeal after a federal judge dismissed their case against Macquarie.
The case against Vertiv seeks to represent anyone who bought stock between Feb. 24, 2021 and Feb. 23, 2022. The company designs, manufactures and services "critical digital infrastructure technologies and life cycle services for data centers, communication networks and commercial and industrial environments."
During a secondary public offering, the company "touted its robust pricing capabilities," the lawsuit says. It sold 20 million shares at $24.83 per, making close to $500 million.
"Contrary to the company's representations, however, Vertiv's 'pricing initiatives' were ineffective and the company's sales force was not capable of driving higher pricing and passing costs on to customers," the suit claims.
"Instead, the sales team had resorted to discounting in order to drive sales and build the company's backlog, which resulted in lower margins and profitability."
Dismal financial results came out in February, the lawsuit says. Stock fell more than 36%.