Voxtur hires former real estate fintech CEO to lead pivot

Voxtur has named a former member of its c-suite who also previously served as the CEO of one of its acquired companies to help lead the company as it changes tack and sells a servicing technology holding.

Ryan Marshall, who has served in chief operating and product roles in the past and previously headed up Benutech, has been named CEO. Accordingly, Chairman Gary Yeoman has shed his CEO title, allowing him to focus on shareholder relations, banking and capital markets.

The move comes after Voxtur announced it would sell a majority stake it held in Blue Water Financial Technologies and successfully fended off a challenge by activist investors, clearing the way for what it now says will be a new focus on the broader context around real estate lending.

“We are poised to build on our successes and address the challenges from the past,” Marshall said in a press release announcing his appointment.

Voxtur acquired Marshall’s former company, Benutech, in 2021. Benutech allowed real estate industry clients to subscribe to a service that provided immediate access to current public and private property data.

Yeoman said Marshall’s “experience in product development, platform development and profit-driven data business models will allow Voxtur to flourish.”

Voxtur’s announcement on late Wednesday had given a slight boost to the company’s penny stock at the time of this writing, with it trading up a few cents per share from where it was previously.

In the proxy fight Voxtur fended off, activist investors had unsuccessfully attempted to put a Blue Water executive in the CEO seat. However, the sale of the stake in that company was unrelated, something that had been underway long before that event occurred, Voxtur has said.

“The purpose of this transaction is to bring on strategic partners in order to extract additional value from the Blue Water platform and strengthen Voxtur’s balance sheet by removing corporate debt,” the company said in a statement last month.

Voxtur plans to focus on complementary business unit relationships going forward with a focus on accountability, efficiency, risk mitigants, innovation, performance metrics, and communication in line with the interests of customers, shareholder and employee stakeholders.