Report: HP Considering Dumping CEO Leo Apotheker
Report: HP Considering Dumping CEO Leo Apotheker
Posted 09/21/2011 at 10:16am
| by Brad Chacos
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When HP named Leo Apotheker as the company’s new CEO a scant 11 months ago, hopes were high that the software-focused former SAP honcho would be able to overhaul the company and help rake in tons of dough. Well, they got it half right; since his appointment, Apotheker has sure shaken things up, but not in a good way; the company’s recent sweeping changes didn’t sit well with the public, and partially as a result, HP’s stock has dropped 47 percent on Leo’s watch. Now, his job may be on the line.
HP’s Board of Directors plans on holding a pow-wow to determine whether or not to kick Apotheker to the curb, Bloomberg reports, citing an anonymous pair of sources “familiar with the situation.” The publication says that former eBay CEO Meg Whitman could be named his replacement, at least on a temporary basis. Just to highlight how low investor confidence is in Apotheker, HP’s stock, which has been in a free fall recently, jumped 6.1 percent when Bloomberg broke the story.
Even if the Board gives Apotheker the boot, his tenure at HP proved more successful than his time at SAP, the last CEO position he held. Apotheker resigned from SAP after just 10 months on the job when consumers and unions flipped him the collective bird after Apotheker tried to raise software prices in the midst of a recession, leading to the company’s first revenue hit in over seven years.
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Gezzer
September 21, 2011 at 11:05pm
Well I whole heartly agree that hiring this guy was a case of the WTF???s, and it does put the decison making ablity of, if not the whole board, then the major backers of this bozo in question I think the whole problem wasn't so much what they indended to do as the way they went about it.
The whole spinning off of HP's PC divsion came off like an elderly alzheimer's victim deciding what he had, might of had, or will have for breakfest, and if he took a dump afterwards (maybe even during?) or not. Anyone in business knows if you start talking about abandoning a market share it'll effect your stock prices because everyone starts preparing for the worst and the company loses a lot of value real quick like.
That's why nobody wanted it. A smart CEO would had a done deal in his pocket before he started any talk about divesting the company of the division. Or spun it off before anyone knew what had happened. In stead a lot of p@ssing around just left HP with egg on it's face, and a lot of p@ssed of stock holders.
Keith E. Whisman
September 21, 2011 at 9:16pm
Lets buy web os and use it for our tablets. Your fired Mr. CEO.
that is how it should have went.
Lets quit making all tablets and while we are at it, lets quit making home computers and laptops too. Your fired Mr. CEO.
Only now are they starting to realize this dude is a dud. If I were a shareholder I would have pushed for a lawsuit against him for being stupid.
vig1lant3
September 21, 2011 at 9:15pm
I think that "legally mentally handicapped" may be closer to what you're looking for. The idea of spinning off your bread and butter operation when you are the largest PC supplier in the world is laughable really. A 47% drop in stock value is a pretty strong indicator that folks with a lot better business sense than me agree. Every decision the company has made since he took his post has been borderline retarded! I'm surprised it's taken so long for folks to recognize this disaster at the helm of a very valuable company.
someuid
September 21, 2011 at 11:54am
Someone needs to look at replacing the board as well. The fact that they hired a software only person who had a measley 10 month stint at his last job should have a been a big, screaming, blood covered warning for them that they were about to make the wrong choice.
I bet the qualified CEOs won't bother considering the job because they know how messed up HP's board are.
duncansil
September 21, 2011 at 10:24am
So will they be buying back all the Palm OS pads he liquidated?
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