Walcalla: As the financials came together - the numbers reflected financial results that were worse than Compaq just reported on April 9. The resignations by the Mason and Pfeiffer were apparently made to cut-off lawsuits directly at the Company.
So far, this evening we have been told that the cause of the resignation was (a) channel stuffing (b) DEC integration (c) slowness in spinning-off AV (d) undisclosed funny accounting or less than 15 cents earnings.
This does not seem to gel with Rosen's statement a couple of hours ago. Would he start the new era with a lie or a cover up?
Here is an excerpt from what he said:
"Boards don't do these things precipitously," Rosen said in an interview with Dow Jones Sunday evening.........
Compaq angered many Wall Street analysts April 9 with a surprising late-Friday afternoon warning that first-quarter earnings wouldn't live up to expectations. The following Monday, Compaq shares fell 22%, and the company acknowledged that it had to work to rebuild credibility with investors.
Rosen said the first-quarter problem was "a factor" in dismissing Pfeiffer, but not the only one.
"Unfortunately, we had a disappointing first quarter last year and three years ago," Rosen said. "It was not an isolated event."
He said he couldn't say right now how the first-quarter problems could have been handled better. "That's something we're going to look into," Rosen said. "We don't have all the details of the quarter, but certainly I'm disappointed by the reaction to it." |
