Better board fight escalates as Vishal Garg names 3 director picks

The fight over control of Better Home & Finance Holding Co. escalated Friday as founder and former CEO Vishal Garg announced three candidates he wants to add to the company’s board, while Better’s special committee said Garg has again extended the deadline for his shareholder campaign and called on him to abandon his consent solicitation. Garg, who was removed from his role as CEO by Better’s board at the start of August and replaced by Daniel Lewis, is seeking shareholder support to remove Lewis and other current directors Harit Talwar, Arnaud Massenet, Bhaskar Menon and Prabhu Narasimhan. Garg has set Oct. 2 as the new target date for submitting written consents, a deadline that was originally set for Sept. 8 and then moved to Sept. 18. Garg previously said he had secured support representing 50.1% of Better’s voting power and would provide evidence of that support. In a separate release on Friday, however, Better said that he has not delivered consents demonstrating that level of support and that he has failed to demonstrate significant support from public shareholders beyond a small group of longtime allies. Garg’s director candidates for the board are Bing Gordon, a longti...