ETFS Capital nominates three candidates to WisdomTree board

ETFS Capital, the largest combined owner of common stock, $0.01 par value, and Series A Non-Voting Convertible Preferred Stock of WisdomTree, with aggregate ownership of approximately 10.2% of the outstanding Common Stock, which together with its Series A Preferred Stock would represent approximately 18.3% of the Company’s outstanding Common Stock on an as-converted basis, announced its nomination of three individuals for election to the Board of Directors of WisdomTree at the Company’s 2023 annual meeting of stockholders and issued an open letter to the Board. The letter read in part, "Despite ETFS Capital being the Company’s largest shareholder, the board of directors has repeatedly refused to engage with us in any meaningful way since May 25, 2022. On August 16 and November 1, 2022, at our urging, we gave detailed presentations with the sole purpose of assisting the Board, in improving WisdomTree’s operations and strategic decision-making. Despite repeated requests on our part thereafter, you have given no feedback on these presentations, nor have we seen evidence of any material changes being implemented in the areas of concern we raised.Instead, your apparent reaction has been to reinstate the Stockholder Rights Plan and to further enhance the already generous Executive Severance Plan. We consider these to be the actions of a board who is afraid to be held to account by its stockholders. When we sold our leading European ETC business to the Company in 2018, we took the majority of the consideration in stock, indicating our belief in the Company and expecting the stock price to increase solidly as a result of enhanced earnings per share that our business delivered to WisdomTree and the tailwinds from investors continuing to move from actively managed funds to exchange-traded funds…When WisdomTree acquired this leading business on April 12, 2018, its stock price closed at $9.11.6 Since then, we believe a lack of focus on the core business, poor capital allocation decisions, failure to manage operating expenses, and undue emphasis on the misguided WT Prime initiative has led to the consequential destruction of stockholder value that has been seen. As of March 17, 2023, the day WisdomTree adopted its latest Poison Pill, its share price had declined to $5.62 – down 38% since April 12, 2018.7 It is clear, in our view, that the Board has failed to provide the necessary management oversight resulting in massive stockholder value destruction…It is clear to us that the Board needs further change to trigger the actions urgently required to address the dismal performance of the Company. We recently sought to engage with the Board in a constructive dialogue on this matter to reach a mutually agreeable resolution to avoid a proxy contest for 2023, but you have repeatedly refused to have any meaningful dialogue or make any offer or proposal that might assist in reaching any form of settlement. For those reasons, in order to preserve our rights ahead of the 2023 Annual Meeting and as further described in our formal notice of nomination delivered to the Company today, we are nominating three highly-qualified director candidates – Bruce E. Aust, Tonia Pankopf, and Graham Tuckwell – for election at the 2023 Annual Meeting. We strongly believe that these individuals, if elected, would bring much-needed governance, capital allocation and operational expertise, as well as a stockholder perspective to WisdomTree’s boardroom."