Jan 25 (Reuters) - Harvest Capital Strategies, one of the biggest investors in prepaid cards issuer Green Dot Corp , said it is seeking an immediate replacement of Green Dot's chief executive, Steve Streit.
Streit, also the president and chairman of Green Dot, must be replaced due to his persistently poor performance, misleading and inconsistent investor communications and inability to deliver on promises to shareholders, Harvest said in a letter to Green Dot's board.
Shares of Green Dot, an issuer of prepaid MasterCard and Visa cards in the United States, have dipped by about 70 percent since its IPO in 2010.
Harvest Capital, which owns 6.2 percent of Green Dot's outstanding shares, added that Streit is struggling with the basic aspects of running Green Dot and is deficient in areas of distribution, pricing and operations.
Harvest Capital said Green Dot's compensation committee had also given out excessive pay, irrespective of performance, to Steve Streit and former CFO Grace Wang.
Harvest Capital also recommended in the letter that if there is no leadership change at Green Dot, then it should hire a financial advisor to explore strategic alternatives, as a short-term remedy, rather than allowing the current management team to continue destroying shareholder value.
(Reporting by Sangameswaran S in Bengaluru; Editing by Sunil Nair)