Membership-based primary care provider Cano Health named Mark Kent as its permanent CEO on Monday.
Cano struck the interim title from Kent and also elected him to the board of directors. The company also announced that former CEO Dr. Marlow Hernandez was stepping down from the board of directors, effective immediately.
Related: Digital health winners, losers emerge form earnings
Before taking the interim CEO role, Kent served as the company’s chief strategy officer. The board of directors previously said it had been searching for a permanent replacement when Hernandez stepped down in June.
Hernandez left the CEO role after a public battle with three former directors who sought his removal. The three, Barry Sternlicht, a billionaire real estate investor; Dr. Lewis Gold, co-founder of Sheridan Healthcare; and Elliot Cooperstone, managing partner of InTandem Capital Partners, resigned in March and expressed dismay that Hernandez’s leadership team was unwilling to sell non-core assets.
The trio lobbied Cano shareholders to remove directors Dr. Alan Muney and Kim Rivera during the company's annual shareholder meeting in June. During the meeting, 82% of shareholders withheld their vote rather than cast ballots for Muney and Rivera, but the two were still reelected. Hernandez stepped down as CEO the day after the annual meeting. The former board directors called for additional changes after Hernandez stepped down but remained on the board.
The trio has not yet responded to a request for comment.
Earlier this month, Kent said on Cano's second quarter earnings call that the company is exploring a potential sale of all or most of its assets. Kent said Cano's liquidity of $125 million is not enough to cover operating, investing and financing uses for the next 12 months.
The company is exiting from markets in California, New Mexico, Illinois. and Puerto Rico and reducing its footprint in Texas and Nevada by half. Cano also announced layoffs affecting 700 employees and posted a second-quarter loss of $270.7 million or 51 cents per share, compared with a loss of $14.6 million, or 3 cents per share, in the same period last year.
Kent previously served as CEO at Evansville, Indiana-based Women’s Health Care Hospital and has founded three startup companies focused on provider practices.
