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Few things in business are as dramatic as a founder trying to claw back control of the company he created. Over the past two weeks, that story has been unfolding in public at a digital mortgage lender, complete with a fired chief executive, a star New York lawyer, and a share price that has fallen sharply since his departure.
At the center of it is Better Home & Finance Holding Company (NASDAQ: BETR), a company that tries to make getting a home loan feel less like paperwork and more like ordering something online. Founded in 2014 by Vishal Garg, Better built its business around technology, using an in-house platform called Tinman to lower the cost of producing a mortgage. Alongside its core lending, the company runs a small United Kingdom banking unit and offers related insurance and real estate services.
The trouble began on August 3rd, when the board replaced Garg with board member Daniel Lewis, a former hedge fund executive, as interim chief executive. How you describe that exit depends on who is talking. The company presented it at the time as a mutual transition, with Garg staying on the board and the chairman praising his work. Garg now describes it very differently, as an abrupt removal that stopped a comeback in its tracks. Whatever the label, investors reacted quickly, and the stock, which traded around $27.30 on the day of his exit, had slipped to roughly $15 within days.
Then Garg pushed back. On August 13rd he announced that he holds signed declarations from shareholders representing a majority of Better’s voting power, and he hired Alex Spiro, a partner at the law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan. Garg asked all but two of the current directors to step aside so a reshaped board could be elected. He also raised the possibility of calling a special shareholder meeting if the board did not cooperate.
To show he was serious, Garg attached money and terms to his proposal. He offered to work for a $1 salary until the company is profitable, to invest $5 million of his own money through a preset trading plan, and to have the company buy back $30 million of its shares. He tied all of this to finishing the sale of Better’s UK bank, known as Birmingham Bank, a deal expected to bring in about $74 million in gross proceeds once regulators sign off.
The pitch leans heavily on the argument that the underlying business is improving. Garg has pointed out that quarterly revenue climbed from roughly $20 million at the start of 2024 to $54.7 million in the second quarter of 2026, while funded loan volume grew from about $600 million to $1.67 billion over the same stretch. Even so, the company is not yet profitable. It posted a net loss of about $30.6 million in the most recent quarter and has been losing money for years.
From the company’s side, the public record tells a steadier story. Better has said the bulk of Lewis’s pay will be tied to shareholder returns, management expects annualized cost reductions to exceed $45 million by year end, and the company continues to pursue the sale of its UK bank. In other words, the board can argue it is already carrying out much of the plan Garg says only he can deliver.
For anyone following the stock, the appeal and the danger are the same thing. This is a small company whose stock has fallen more than 96% since it went public in 2023 through a merger with a blank check firm, and small companies can swing sharply on news like this. A contested board, a possible special meeting, and a pending asset sale each carry a yes or no outcome, and any one of them could move the shares. The only safe prediction is that the next chapter will not be quiet.
