[CEOs: Whitman, Pérez, Martore]
Another Old Line company lurched toward oblivion today when Hewlett-Packard stunned investors with a nearly $7 billion loss, writing down a software division named Autonomy that it bought just over a year ago and citing accounting irregularities. HP's stock is down more than 10% on the news.
Meg Whitman has been struggling to turn around the Silicon Valley giant since being named CEO in September 2011. In that unenviable task, she joins Antonio Pérez, CEO of Eastman Kodak, which filed for bankruptcy protection in January.
Under CEO Gracia Martore, however, Gannett investors have enjoyed a much better year. Change in companies' shares from a year ago, based on recent trading prices today:
+59%
-58%
-84%
[Data: Google Finance]
It's all smoke & mirrors, Gracia. When the shit hits the fan, Gannett will once again be all over the news and not in a good way.
ReplyDeleteBased on the stock gain, she had a very good year. If only she made a fraction of p.r.gains among her employees. Layoffs, furloughs, miniscule raises and questionable hires do not make great leaders. either do purpose walls.
ReplyDeleteThe power of Gannett Blog: someone FINALLY corrected the error in Michael Wolff's column that referred to the Ohio PRIMARY. It only took nearly 24 hours.
ReplyDelete7:29 Unfortunately in that same Wolff column, this gibberish-y sentence still stands:
ReplyDelete"Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of Fox parent News, has, under prodding from his wife and children, is becoming increasingly uncomfortable with Fox News."
I believe that should read:
Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of Fox parent News Corp., has, under prodding from his wife and children, become increasingly uncomfortable with Fox News.
ANOTHER WOLFF ERROR?
ReplyDeleteActually read all of Wolff's gibberish this week. His reference about Fox nada on Latinos -- my God, has he seen this?
http://latino.foxnews.com/index.html
IMO -- this is a gross error of fact. He needs to provide his spin on this.
And Rup is anti-Fox? If I were his editor, I'd want to see his notes on that. Who else has reported this?
This is not good.
It was nearly $9 billion (not $7), and was a goodwill writedown, not an operating "loss".
ReplyDelete11:14 From The Wall Street Journal's story, which I linked to:
ReplyDeleteIt was a nearly $7 billion loss (specifically: $6.9 billion) following an $8.8 billion write-down.
Apples and oranges. Unlike GCI and Kodak, HP's core problems are entirely its own and not due to a declining industry. Moreover, the Autonomy mess is sideshow unrelated to HP's core problems.
ReplyDeleteamazing how a succession of ceos has screwed this company up sp badly. For Whitman to allege fraud after accounting firms and HP throughly examined (supposedly) Autonomy's books before they bought the company seems awfully weird. They did not properly kick the tires on thos desl before it was done, then mismanaged the operation and watched as hundreds of people left in disgust.
ReplyDelete