All -
As long as I'm up late and we're still on the subject, I'd like to ask everyone something. Does anyone know exactly what Tim Hill's option strike price was?
If you don't know what the price was, then you don't know what his net gain was from selling his shares. He may have sold 5 million bucks worth of shares, but that could not have been what he kept. He had to pay something to exercise the options.
The fact is that Tim Hill is not single-handedly responsible for the current price of IOM. His sales may be one factor involved, but they are certainly not the only one.
The bears have stated that they are concerned with dwindling demand for Zips, lower prices of Zips leading to reduced margins, increasing competition, shady bookkeeping, etcetera, AND inside sales by a number of executives. Also, they are concerned that Iomega's earnings growth cannot be sustained, and that the high P/E (currently just below 40) is therefore not justified.
If you want to blame Tim Hill for all of that, fine. He's the devil.
I really don't know what kind of contribution he's made to Iomega, what he really made on those options, or what his base salary is. For all I know, he could be the greediest bastard since William Randolph Hearst. I don't even know if he really deserves any credit for the excellent marketing job Iomega has done.
But I don't quite get why he's suddenly the one man to blame for Iomega's share price. Really, if Kim Edwards is so smart and Hill's so useless, why doesn't Edwards just can his ass?
Kim Edwards should be very concerned about Iomega's future. After all, he's still holding ALL of his stock and options.
- Allen |
