No. 1: Xerox

CEO: John Visentin

Dec. 31, 2019 Close: $36.87

Dec. 31, 2020 Close: $23.19

Change: -37.10%

Xerox began 2020 pursuing an unsolicited bid to take over HP Inc., its leading competitor in the printer market.

HP had rejected the Xerox proposal and on Nov. 26, 2019, Xerox launched a direct appeal to HP stockholders, asking them to sell their shares to Xerox. The maneuvering and posturing continued into the new year and Xerox at one point upped its offer from $22 per share to $24 per share for a total of $34.9 billion.

But Xerox’s efforts were ultimately stymied by the COVID-19 pandemic. Xerox dropped its buyout effort on March 31, citing the pandemic and the “resulting macroeconomic and market turmoil.”

On Dec. 11 Xerox named company veteran Xavier Heiss to be the company’s CFO, replacing William Osbourn, who left in September for personal reasons.

For the first nine months ended Sept. 30 of 2020, Xerox reported revenue of $5.09 billion, down 23 percent from $6.62 billion in the first nine months of 2019. The company reported net income of $115 million for the nine-month period, down 78.5 percent from $535 million in net income one year earlier.

Xerox ended 2020 with a market cap of $4.60 billion, down 42.27 percent from $7.97 billion at the end of 2019.