Is JDS Uniphase Losing CEO for Brighter Horizons or His Management Failings?

JDS Uniphase JDSU (NASDAQ), the laser and optical fiber component maker, announced during a conference call on October 29th its CEO, Kevin Kennedy, will be resigning his position.  Kennedy is leaving JDS Uniphase after five years at the helm of the firm to become the new CEO of Avaya, Inc. in January 2009.  Kennedy’s announced resignation comes as JDS continues to face slowing profits and a prediction by the firm that its sales for the second quarter that end in December are expected to be well below analysts forecasts.  Kennedy leaves the firm according to a story in Fierce Telecom,

… as JDSU is planning to cut 400 employee and contractor positions, as well as reduce its number of manufacturing locations from 19 to 12.

 Kennedy’s exit also comes as the company stock according to a story by Bert Hill of the Ottawa Citizen,

... plunged 61 per cent in the last year.

 It is difficult to determine what Kennedy succeeded in doing for JDS over the last year.  Kennedy himself was quoted saying (read Lightwave article),

“My decision to leave JDSU reflects the convergence of a unique opportunity presenting itself as well as my confidence in the JDSU leadership team that is in place to execute the initiatives now underway which should result in best in class operating metrics,” Kennedy was quoted as saying in an announcement. “I look forward to continuing to work with the team as a member of the board of directors.”  

 JDS finds itself in a difficult situation. Keep a very close eye on who the board puts in charge and who it ultimately finds to replace Kennedy.  It is hard to determine whether he is leaving a sinking ship or just jumping ship for a far better opportunity.Time will tell.

For more:

Barron’s Tech Trader (2007)

Marketwatch 

GigaOm

Earlier scandal and Operational Difficulties Finally Lead to CEO Exit

MF Global Ltd. MF (NYSE), the futures and options brokerage firm, announced today that CEO Kevin Davis resigned from his position as CEO and board member effective immediately.  Davis had been with the firm for seventeen years.   Back in February of this year the company made public a rogue trading scandal within the company.  According to a story by Stephanie Baum of Dow Jones’ Financial News dated February 28, 2008,

Evan Dooley, who worked at the Memphis branch office (MF Global) in the US, was discovered working in wheat futures via the Chicago Board of Trade at a level that “substantially exceeded his authorized trading limit.” MF Global terminated Dooley shortly after the discovery. 

The company’s share price fell 27.6% at the close of trade to $21.19 on Thursday. Its share price fell a further 19.7% on Friday to $17 as of 1:54 pm EST. When the company went public this past July, its opening share price was $31. 

In addition, Standard & Poor’s Rating Services and Moody’s Investors Service cut the broker’s credit rating on Friday. S&P lowered its long-term counterparty credit rating to BBB from BBB+. Moody’s lowered its long-term credit rating to Baa1 from A3. 

From that point onward the company has been struggling.  According to a story by Kevin Kingsbury in the Wall Street Journal,

Shares of MF Global have lost 93% of their value this year, including 48% this month alone, following a rogue trading scandal that wiped out the prior year’s earnings, raised concerns about its risk-management policies and triggered a dilutive refinancing with private equity firm J.C. Flowers & Co. LLC in May.

With the announcement of Davis’ resignation the company appointed current president and chief operating officer Bernard Dan as his replacement.  Dan joined the firm back in June.  Prior to his appointment, Dan had led the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT).  Last year the CBOT was acquired by the CME Group Inc.  Dan was the CBOT’s president and CEO for close to five years prior to the acquisition.    Dan has come in to stabilize the firm.  We will just have to wait and see how the changes play out and exactly what Dan can do to turn the firm around.  It will be a tough road.  

For more: 

Forbes  

Marketwatch  

Reuters  

Seeking Alpha (June 2008)   

CEO Watch - Rick Wagoner, General Motors Update 8

Speculation is beginning to arise about the fate of Rick Wagoner as GM's CEO should a deal be made with Chrysler/Cerberus.  While the chances for a deal between the two car companies still seem a bit remote, should it happen, would Wagoner remain CEO?  I would doubt it.  

Earlier today a piece in Bloggingstocks.com speculated on a number of possible choices who would come from Cerberus.  While I am skeptical of the choices listed, I do think a deal would necessitate the need for a new CEO excluding both Wagoner of GM and Nardelli of Chrysler.

Stay tuned.

Update to New CEO, Cadence Design Systems

Cadence Design Systems CDNS (NASDAQ) which had a major CEO change earlier in the month (see earlier blog) according to CFO.com announced it,

is restating its financial restatements for the first two quarters of 2008 to correct $24 million in revenue recognition errors. It is also reviewing how customer contracts signed during the first quarter were recognized instead over the duration of the contracts, beginning with the second quarter. 

The announcement could not come at a more difficult time.  With a new CEO in charge along with other key managers the company must now focus on this issue.  According to the CFO.com article,

Cadence is hardly the only software maker to get snagged by revenue recognition issues. And although it seems too early to say if there’s any relation between the current company issues and broader industry problems, software makers have been struggling with the accounting rules for years over the booking of sales. 

Keep a close eye on when the company manages to put out its stalled third quarter earnings and how it deals with this latest difficulty. 

CEO Watch List - Jonathan Schwartz, Sun Microsystems

For sometime I have been considering including Sun Microsystems’ SUN (NASDAQ) CEO, Jonathan Schwartz, on my CEO Watch list.  Schwartz was appointed CEO back in 2006.  While I have long admired his intelligence and creative thinking the company’s overall performance under his tutelage has not faired all that well.  For a long time, I thought he would ultimately find a path to success for the firm.  Recent events, however, have forced me to include Schwartz on my CEO Watch list.   First there was the company’s latest performance results.  According to Therese Poletti of MarketWatch,

On Tuesday, the systems and software maker gave Wall Street a nasty surprise with the news that it expects to report a worse-than-expected loss in the fiscal first quarter. It is also conducting an internal “impairment analysis” because some its business units may be now worth less than their carrying value. 

 Poletti went on in the article to say,

It is time for Schwartz to make some serious changes at the beleaguered company, or it is going to continue in its downward spiral, in the same manner as ghosts from tech’s past, such as Digital Equipment Corp. 

Second, the company’s troubled performance has been seriously complicated by its largest shareholder, O. Mason Hawkins the CEO of Southeastern Asset Management.  Southeastern Asset yesterday disclosed it holds just over 21% stake in Sun. Hawkins has begun to squeeze the vise around Schwartz.  Hawkins is pushing hard for Sun to make changes to increase shareholder value.  They recently shifted their SEC filing from a 13G to 13D.  The change indicates Southeastern will no longer sit by passively but will continue to pressure management for changes.The proverbial third shoe fell today.  The co-founder of the firm, Andy Bechtelsheim, who returned to the firm four years ago, announced today he would be leaving Sun.  According to a story in Business Week,

(He will leave Sun) to become chairman and chief development officer at Arista Networks, a startup he has funded that sells a powerful network switch for data centers, and whose customer list includes Google (GOOG). Arista’s CEO is Jayshree Ullal, who left Cisco Systems (CSCO) in May after 15 years at the company, and who had worked on some of the company’s key products. 

 

The departure of Sun’s star engineer, who had spearheaded development of a new line of more affordable products the company is pushing, comes as Sun’s sales slump and investors grow impatient with the company’s turnaround plans.

Numerous analysts are predicting a possible sale of the company or parts or a management change.  The problems facing Sun at this point in time make it likely that Schwartz may find himself out of his CEO position if he can not found a solution to the company’s ongoing difficulties. Stay tuned. 

For more:

Deal Journal 

Forbes  

TheStreet.com 

Harris interactive Brings in New CEO Talent

Harris Research Interactive, Inc.  HPOL (NASDAQ), the struggling custom research firm, has changed its CEO. Gregory T Novak who has served as the company's president since 2004 and CEO since September 2005 resigned his position, effective immediately.  He has also resigned his position as Chairman.  In his place the board has selected Kimberly Till.  Till had been a CEO of a Harris Research competitor.  According to Market Research Online,

Till was CEO of TNS North America until leaving the firm in March, when it merged its North American and Latin American custom business. Prior to TNS, she was VP of the Worldwide Media and Entertainment Group at Microsoft, and served 

 as SVP and General Manager of AOL International. She also previously served as the SVP of Strategic Planning and Marketing for Sony Corporation of America, and as the Director of Marketing and Operations for Disney Interactive in Paris, France. Till has an MBA from Harvard Business School, a JD from Duke University Law School and a BA in History from the University of Alabama. 

Harris Interactive has been struggling of late.  The company has lost a fair amount of pharmaceutical related business. According to the Market Research Online article referred to earlier, the company plans to lay off a number of domestic workers.  Till's selection appears to be a good choice.  She has the requisite background in research and more significantly a far greater understanding of marketing than Novak.  Novak was an engineer by trade, Till has a more varied background which should serve her well in this difficult business environment.  While the research market will continue to present difficulties, Till's appointment may be just the medicine to help the company find a new path to progress.

  For more: 

MarketWatch

Rochester Democrat and Chronicle   

Recommended Reading - Carl Icahn's Take on CEO Compensation for Troubled Financials

Carl Icahn weighed in today on the on-going controversy of CEO compensation. Icahn wrote on his blog today,

We need better corporate governance in this country. We can’t afford the kind of mismanagement that got us into a financial crisis that nearly caused an economic collapse. 

Paulson’s plan is a baby step in reforming executive pay but I have a better idea: why don’t we give shareholders of any bank accepting a government bailout the immediate right to call a special shareholders meeting to elect new board members?

In my view, it was the boards of directors at institutions like Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, AIG and others that failed to stop management from pursuing risky strategies that crippled their firms.

Frequently controversial and often times self-serving, Icahn continues to press for major governance related changes at public companies. We will have to wait and see if he can have any kind of impact on the bailout as it relates to executive compensation. 

Stay tuned.  

Recommended Reading - Why sorry isn’t in many CEOs’ vocabularies anymore

Lawyers hold sway for ousted financial CEOs.  According to a story by Del Jones in USA Today,

Apologies, encouraged in recent years by the crisis-management industry, have dried up — even apologies deployed as a business or political strategy.

Legal concerns weigh heavily on any words that might be construed as an admission of guilt. But also weighing heavily is the silence from politicians, regulators and past and present CEOs at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, Bear Stearns, Countrywide Financial, Merrill Lynch and Washington Mutual. It’s been clear for weeks that the financial crisis has dammed the free flow of credit. But with each passing day, it’s also appears that the crisis has likewise dammed the free flow of taking responsibility.

 Public relations has lost out to legal culpability.  For more on the situation check out the article.  

SumTotal Systems Brings in New CEO

SumTotal Systems, Inc. SUMT (NASDAQ), the software company that develops, markets, distributes and supports learning, performance and talent management products, has chosen an outside candidate, Arun Chandra, to replace Dan Fowler the current CEO.  Fowler, who is 70, has announced his retirement effective November 1.  Fowler will continue as a business advisor  to the company through his official termination on December 31.  He has been CEO of the firm since 2005.  According to the company’s press release,

Chandra is a veteran of Hewlett-Packard where he began his career as a software engineer. During his 20-year tenure at HP, Chandra held many leadership positions, his final as vice president of worldwide marketing, strategy & alliances for the Technology Solution Group, a $30 billion enterprise business. Earlier in his career with HP, he served as general manager of several growing businesses including the PC Direct  

 business. He left HP in 2005 to serve as the president and chief executive officer of iPolicy Networks, a network security company. 

Most recently, Chandra served as vice president of corporate operations at Unisys where he led the company’s change management efforts. He also managed a broad range of corporate functions including the office of the CTO, corporate strategy & development, worldwide marketing and global alliances, among others. 

SumTotal has not been performing well from a shareholder perspective, yet the company’s overall financials have been reasonably solid.  While Chandra has a great deal of experience in the technology/software sector he has had limited experience as a CEO.   It is difficult to assess whether his long time experience at Hewlett Packard, recent stint at Unisys handling change management along with his short stint as CEO at iPolicy Networks are sufficient for assessing the potential he will have as SumTotal’s CEO.  It is difficult to determine what he plans to do to help the company’s shareholder performance.Keep a close eye on the company going forward.  Particularly any specific moves or new hires Chandra initiates. 

For more: 

Mercury blogs  

Recommended Reading - Bank bailout also curbs CEO pay, NPR Marketplace

Rachel Dornhelm of NPR's Marketplace had an audio/written story on NPR's Marketplace this morning that focused on how the recent bank bailout and the subsequent curbs on CEO pay could actually result in changes in the compensation structure for CEOs in numerous industries. There remains great skepticism over whether the new restrictions on CEO compensation imposed in the recent bailout package will actually have any impact even in the financial related sector. Dornhelm's interview of Professor Charles Elson, the head of the University of Delaware's Corporate Governance Program and Mark Borges, a compensation consultant with Compensia, raised the possiblility that the new restrictions may actually have an impact on CEOs outside the bailout. For more on the story check out the Marketplace piece.

Recommended Reading -Frustration with executive pay crosses Atlantic

As the financial crisis crossed borders executive compensation began to become an issue in Europe.  While the issue continues to frustrate many in the United States and was peripherally addressed in the recent bailout legislation, the Associated Press wrote a piece yesterday that appeared on MSNBC.  The story focused on how the executive issue is being dealt with in Europe.

First Walgreens now Cadence Design - CEOs' Failed Acquisitions Can Have Consequences

Earlier this month I wrote about the CEO change at Walgreens (see blog).  Now comes news that Cadence Design CDNS (NASDAQ), the electronic-design automation company, underwent a major management shakeout today that included the resignation of its CEO, Michael Fister, a former Intel Corp. executive.  In addition to Fister's resignation according to the company's press release,

The company also announced other executive resignations: Kevin Bushby resigned as executive vice president, worldwide field operations; James S. Miller, Jr. as executive vice president, products and technologies organization; William Porter as executive vice president and chief administrative officer; and R.L. Smith McKeithen as executive vice president, corporate affairs.

The major management shuffle comes as the company continues to face a difficult business and financial environment.  The company has experienced a number of consecutive 

weak quarters.  The company, according to a story by Shirleen Dorman in the Wall Street Journal,

... reiterated its lowered July outlook for a third-quarter per-share loss of 27 cents to 25 cents with revenue of $235 million to $245 million. Third-quarter results are due on Oct. 22.

Cadence - which has the largest revenue among companies that sell software for making chips and other electronic products - and rivals have seen their customers' purchasing budgets squeezed by a number of factors, including severe price pressure on memory chips and other products. New production processes that put more transistors on a chip - allowing more complex products - have also led to rising design costs, which deters some companies from developing new chips.

From my perspective the real issue that forced Fister out was his failed effort to acquire Mentor Graphics.   Back in June of this year, Fister embarked on an hostile effort to purchase its competitor, Mentor Graphics for $1.6 billion as a way, according to Marketwatch,

... to cut costs and boost market share.

Cadence was forced to rescind its offer in August due to its deteriorating position and the difficulty it was facing as regards to obtaining attractive financing terms.  Fisker and his top associates failure in the Mentor Graphics acquisition is very similar to the failure of the hostile acquisition attempt by former CEO of Walgreens, Jeffrey Reins.  Both have paid with their jobs.  Cadence failed to give a reason for Fister's resignation.  According to the press release,

Mr. Fister, who took over as CEO in 2004, had resigned by "mutual agreement" with the board.

To temporarily deal with the management changes Cadence's board set up what they called an "interim office of the chief executive" that includes John Shaven, the company's chairman, Lip-Bu-Ton, a director, and chief financial officer Kevin Palatnik.  Cadence faces some very difficult challenges going forward.  Hopefully they will be able to put together a top new team capable of guiding the company through what can only be considered extremely difficult times.

Stay tuned.

For more:

EE Times

EDN

Reuters

San Jose Business Journal

Financial Week

Recommended Reading - Good Management Never Goes Out of Style

John Mase, an economist and blogger, writes the Mase: Economics and Finance blog.  Today's post focuses on executive management and why it is key to a company's long term success.  According to Mase,

“Good management” is what one should look for to invest in at all times.

Good management must first create an organization that has some kind of competitive advantage, something that differentiates it from other organizations, within the marketplace. This competitive advantage is generally built upon something the firm has, some core competencies that others don’t possess. And, these core competencies are enhanced by the team that management builds to enhance and sustain these core competencies. 

In judging a company, I have gotten away from just looking at the head of the organization, the top dog. What has become crucial in my appraisal of any organization is the people the head person brings in to support and enhance the firm.

Anyone interested in management as a key component to a company's success should read Mase's post.

CEO Watch - Sir Fred Goodwin - Royal Bank of Scotland Update 2

Back in late August (see blog post) I placed Sir Fred Goodwin, the CEO of the Royal Bank of Scotland, on my CEO watch list.  It took a bank bailout from the government of the United Kingdom to get Sir Goodwin's head.  According to a story by Jon Menon in Bloomberg, in exchange for the U.K. government bailout,

..RBS will get 20 billion pounds, while HBOS and Lloyds will raise 17 billion pounds between them, the companies said in separate statements today. RBS Chief Executive Officer Fred Goodwin and HBOS CEO Andy Hornby will also step down

The Bank has appointed Stephen Hester as Sir Fred Goodwin's replacement as CEO.  Hester has been the CEO of British Land one of the largest real estate firms in the U.K.  He is

 expected to institute a number of radical changes at the bank in light of the financial crisis. According to a different story in Bloomberg Hester,

may get rid of securities trading and consumer banking in the U.S. and corporate lending in Europe. He also may sell assets that outgoing CEO Fred Goodwin bought last year from Amsterdam-based ABN Amro Holding NV.

"There are no sacred cows,'' Hester, 47, said on a conference call with reporters today. "We will make material changes to strategy.''

One can assume the executive change at RBS and the U.K. investment in the bank will make for a more certain situation going forward.  We will just have to wait and see.  Stay tuned.

For more:

Globe and Mail (10/14)

Providence Journal

Financial News

Reuters

MarketWatch

Seeking Alpha

Fin Facts Ireland

Ford Makes Key Management Change - New CFO

Ford Motor Company F (NYSE), the struggling American car manufacturer, has turned to its 59 year old European executive Lewis Booth.  On November 1, Booth will replace Chief Financial Officer Don Leclair who has been the firm's CFO since 2003.  Booth is often slated as a potential successor to Alan Mullahy, Ford's current CEO.  As American car firms seek a way out of their current serious financial and sales predicament, Booth comes to his new position at a propitious moment.  According to the Free Press Booth has been considered to have,

played a leading role in the successful transformation of Ford of Europe and Mazda during the past decade.

Can Ford and General Motors find a way out of their circumstances? Stay tuned.

For more:

NY Times DealBook

Reuters

International Herald Tribune

MarketWatch

NPR

Walgreens' Chairman and CEO, Jeffrey Reins, Gives up Reins

Walgreens CEO and chairman Jeffrey A. Reins today announced his immediate resignation as CEO, chairman and director of the firm.  Reins, who headed up Walgreen's latest failed attempt to acquire Longs Drug Store Corp. was the company's CEO since 2006.  He had worked at Walgreens since 1982 when he began as an assistant store manager.  He then worked his way up the corporate ladder.  The company has insisted that Rein's departure had nothing to do with the firm's failed acquisition attempt of Longs.  According to a story in Reuters,

"This is not related to the Longs proposal," a company spokesman said. He declined to comment further on Rein's departure, which is effective immediately.

It is easy to conclude that Rein's has been forced to fall on his sword over his failed acquisition attempt and the fact that CVS, Walgreen's main competitor,

 has succeeded in going forward with the acquisition of Longs.  CVS's offer appears to have succeeded despite the fact it was lower than that of Walgreens.  Walgreen's was forced to withdraw its cash offer Wednesday when it became clear they would not succeed in their efforts.  Longs originally rejected Walgreens' offer back in September.  According to

 the GlobeSt.com a commercial real estate firm,

Longs rejected Walgreen’s higher offer on Sept. 17, more than one month after accepting the $2.7-billion offer from CVS, saying the regulatory risk was too great. Walgreenbresponded later that month disagreeing with the assessment. A few days after that, Longs reported that the Federal Trade Commission was investigating whether a Walgreen acquisition would reduce competition among retail pharmacies in parts of California, Nevada and Hawaii, where Longs has most of its stores and where there is significant overlap with Walgreen stores.

It appears Reins' failed to handle the acquisition attempt properly or should not have done it all.  There still remains a question as to Walgreen's ultimate motive in the acquisition a

ttempt.  Were they only trying to prevent CVS from getting Longs or was Walgreens really interested in the chain?  Whatever the reason, Reins has been forced to give up the reins.  

The company named lead director Alan G. McNally as Rein's interim replacement as both CEO and chairman.  McNally has been a member of the board since 1999 and was previously the CEO and chairman of Harris Bancorp.

Keep a close eye on what Walgreens does over the next few months and who they ultimately choose as the permanent replacement for Reins.

For more:

Pacific Business News

Wall Street Journal

Bloomberg

Chicago Tribune

Briefing.com

Unisys Appoints New CEO and Chairman

Unisys, the struggling computer services and hardware firm, which recently pushed out its CEO (see blog) after increasing pressure from activist shareholder MMI Investments, today announced the selection of J. Edward Coleman as the firm's CEO and new Chairman.  Coleman, who Unisys has slated as a turnaround specialist, will take his position immediately. He has indicated he will be available at the firm's earnings call October 30th at which time he is expected to give his views on the firm.  

Unisys has sung the praises of Coleman for his efforts to turnaround Gateway Computer which he took over as CEO back in 2006.  Coleman was supposedly repsonsible for the sale of the firm to Acer, Inc. Upon the sale he left the firm.  Prior to his work with Gateway, he worked for Compu Com, Computer Sciences Corporation and IBM.  According to today's Wall Street Journal which quoted Unisys' press release,

... he "successfully restructured the company (Gateway) through a series of strategic initiatives and tightly focused the business on its core markets, culminating in its acquisition by Acer Inc.," 

I am not certain MMI Investments which holds over 9% of the company shares will be satisfied with the Coleman pick, we will just have to wait and see.  Coleman's task ahead is monumental, we will just have to watch his moves, his talent picks and his overall strategy to get a real sense of what he plans to do and whether he can succeed in his plans.

For more:

Orange County Business Journal

Washington Technology

New AMD CEO Makes Real Changes

AMD's AMD (NYSE) new CEO, Dirk Meyer, who took over the position back in July (see blog), has succeeded in coming up with a new way for re-structuring the struggling chip maker.  Today the company announced it would be spinning off its manufacturing arm into a new business and giving away its debt.  The new business will initially be called the The Foundry Company.  The original company will continue focusing on the design of computer chips and will be run by Dirk Meyer.  According to a CNET story by Brooke Crothers,

The newly created Foundry Company was described by AMD Chief Executive Dirk Meyer on Tuesday as a "brand-new and leading-edge semiconductor manufacturing company." It will be run by Doug Grose, who will relinquish his current role as AMD's senior vice president of manufacturing operations to become CEO of The Foundry Company.

... Hector Ruiz--the current AMD chairman--will relinquish his role as AMD's executive chairman to become chairman of The Foundry Company. 

As part of the change, AMD managed to succeed in bringing about this shift through a major additional investment of approximately $6 billion from Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC) and Mubadala Development both of whom are investment arms of the Abu Dhabi government and already own a large share of the firm.  It still remains uncertain how much in the end the latest dramatic changes will make for the firm in relation to its major competitor and remaining industry behemoth, Intel, but at least the company appears to be making some significant changes.  

Maybe Meyer has more up his sleeve.  Stay tuned.

For more:

Deal.com (update 10/9)

Giga Om

NY Times blog

Financial Times

Bloomberg

bit-tech net

Portfolio.com

UK Register

Gulfnews

Barron's Blog

Business Week blog

Recommended Reading - Failure is an option

Carmen Nobel of Portfolio.com wrote a story yesterday examining circumstances where previous failed CEOs surprisingly get hired as CEO for another firm, e.g., Robert Nardelli former CEO of Home Depot and current CEO of Chrysler.  Nobel examines the reasons why this can happen and examines the overall CEO hiring process.  The piece is a worthwhile read.

Third Quarter Executive Turnover Figures Decline From 2007 and 2006

Liberum has just put together the latest third quarter turnover numbers for 2008.  The numbers have been surprising.  Executive turnover in the third quarter has declined from the totals registered in 2007 and 2006.  Below is a graphical representation of some the key turnover totals for the third quarter over the last number of years.  The categories are broken down into Internal Moves, Joining, Leaving, Promoted, Resigned/Retired, Terminated and Total.