Hey Victor, they're crushing Computer Associates today.
Wonder why? CA is the most shareholder centric company you'll ever find. Yeah right!!
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Dover, Delaware, June 22 (Bloomberg) -- Computer Associates Inc., a top software maker, won a judge's approval for a $230 million settlement with shareholders who claimed executives wrongly received more than $500 million in stock as special compensation.
Lisa Sanders and Edward Bickel, who own shares in the Islandia, New York-based company, filed suit in Delaware Chancery Court in 1998, contending Chief Executive Charles Wang, Chief Operating Officer Sanjay Kumar and Executive Vice President Russell Artzt should return 9.5 million of the 20.25 million shares they received in executive compensation.
The suits alleged the awards, enhanced by stock splits, exceeded the 1995 plan's limits and forced the company to take a $1 billion charge against earnings -- causing the stock to plunge 31 percent in a day. A judge later ordered the executives to hand over the 9.5 million shares, but during appeal, company officials and lawyers agreed to settle the case for return of 4.5 million shares, worth about $230 million today.
The settlement ``constitutes a return of value to shareholders -- they should be pleased with this result,'' said Judge Myron Steele in approving the settlement today.
Steele also agreed to award shareholders' lawyers 900,000 shares of Computer Associates' stock to cover legal fees and expenses. The fees are worth about $46 million today.
Shares of Computer Associates, which reported $6.76 billion in fiscal year 2000 sales, fell 3 1/4, or nearly 6 percent, to 51 1/8 on the New York Stock Exchange today. The value of the shares has dropped nearly 27 percent so far this year.
Jun/22/2000 16:47 ET |
