Garg Prevails In Better Board Fight, Plans Immediate Director Changes

Vishal Garg’s months-long fight to regain influence over Better Home & Finance has reached a decisive turn.

Better’s Special Committee said Monday that it has withdrawn its challenge to the preliminary report of the independent inspector reviewing Garg’s shareholder consent campaign, citing the cost and uncertainty of continuing the fight.

Minutes later, the Garg Group said it intends to immediately appoint venture capitalists Bing Gordon and Steve Sarracino to Better’s board and begin implementing its plan for the mortgage company.

The move follows a preliminary determination by First Coast Results, the independent election inspector hired by Better, that Garg’s group obtained more than 52% of the votes required to remove five incumbent directors.

“The Special Committee determined that this decision is in the best interests of the Company and all of its stockholders, in consideration of the costs and uncertainty of a prolonged contest,” Better said.

The committee added that it “wishes the very best to the hard-working employees of Better and hopes the company will thrive.”

Garg Moves To Reshape Better

The Garg Group characterized the Special Committee’s withdrawal as recognition of the shareholder vote and said it would move ahead with its previously announced plan.

The shareholder campaign targeted interim CEO Daniel Lewis and directors Harit Talwar, Arnaud Massenet, Bhaskar Menon, and Prabhu Narasimhan for removal.

Attention now shifts from the board fight to what Garg’s group plans to do with Better.

Garg has outlined a 90-day turnaround plan that calls for increasing Better’s annual cost-savings target from $45 million to $60 million, pursuing $2 billion in quarterly combined home equity line of credit volume, expanding partnerships involving Better’s Tinman AI mortgage platform, and pursuing the sale of its U.K. banking operation.

The plan also calls for an outside interim CEO with mortgage-industry experience while Garg focuses on product, platform, and innovation.

Better’s board previously called the plan “unworkable.”

The Fight Moves From Control To Execution

NMP previously found that despite their bitter governance fight, Garg and Better’s post-Garg leadership were advocating many of the same broad priorities: expanding Tinman, growing wholesale and embedded distribution, increasing home equity lending, and cutting costs.

The larger disagreement increasingly became who would control that strategy.

The company has been developing TinmanGo to bring its AI-powered mortgage infrastructure to brokers. Garg, meanwhile, has advocated aggressive use of AI to automate processing and underwriting work and has questioned whether brokers need another proprietary wholesale portal.

Better is also moving forward without Leah Price, who was hired to lead the expansion of Tinman to outside lenders and brokers before leaving the company.

Better shares were down about 7% in midday trading Monday following the latest developments in the board fight.

With Garg again positioned to influence Better’s product and technology strategy, the company is entering a new phase for Tinman, wholesale, and its broader mortgage operation.

After months spent fighting over who gets to run Better, Garg has won the battle for control. The turnaround plan he fought to put in place now has to deliver.