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Technology Stocks : Azenta -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mopgcw who wrote (864)	3/22/2006 12:49:20 PM
From: Jim Oravetz	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1138

Today, PAGE ONE, in WSJ, this snippet on BRKS showed up. Just posting for a FYI as I do not own shares. The Perfect Payday Some CEOs reap millions by landing stock options when they are most valuable. Luck -- or something else? By CHARLES FORELLE and JAMES BANDLER March 18, 2006; Page A1 On a summer day in 2002, shares of Affiliated Computer Services Inc. sank to their lowest level in a year. Oddly, that was good news for Chief Executive Jeffrey Rich. snip... ....Until 2002, companies didn't have to report option grants until months later. The Sarbanes-Oxley law, by forcing them to report grants within two days, left less leeway to retroactively date a grant. The new rule reduced stock patterns suggestive of backdating, but didn't eliminate these altogether, according to a study by M.P. Narayanan and H. Nejat Seyhun of the University of Michigan. They found that companies report about a quarter of option grants later than the two-day deadline -- and that such delayed reporting is associated with big price gains after the grant dates. It is a pattern Mr. Narayanan calls "consistent with backdating." Before the stricter rules, Brooks Automation Inc., a semiconductor-equipment maker in Chelmsford, Mass., gave 233,000 options to its CEO, Robert Therrien, in 2000. The stated grant date was May 31. That was a great day to have options priced. Brooks's stock plunged over 20% that day, to $39.75. And the very next day it surged more than 30%. A June 7 Brooks report to the SEC covering Mr. Therrien's May options activity made no mention of his having gotten a grant on May 31, even though the report -- which Mr. Therrien signed -- did cite other options-related actions he took on May 31. Not until August was the May 31 grant reported to the SEC. It wasn't the only well-timed option grant he got. One in October 2001 came at Brooks stock's lowest closing price that year, once again at the nadir of a sharp plunge. The Journal analysis puts the odds of such a consistent pattern occurring by chance at about 1 in nine million. Mr. Therrien, who stepped down as CEO in 2004 and retired as chairman this month, didn't return messages seeking comment. Chief Financial Officer Robert Woodbury said Brooks is "in the process of revamping" practices so grants come at about the same time each year. Mr. Woodbury, who joined in 2003, said no one at Brooks would be able to explain the timing of Mr. Therrien's grants. The highly favorable 2000 grant also benefited two others at Brooks -- the compensation-committee members who oversaw the CEO's grants. Although Brooks directors typically got options only in July, that year a special grant was awarded just to these two directors, Roger Emerick and Amin J. Khoury. Each got 20,000 options at the low $39.75 price. By the time of their regular July option-grant date, the stock was way up to $61.75, a price far less favorable to options recipients. snip...