SiliconBeat

Actel, the Mountain View supplier of low-power programmable chips, has agreed to a settlement of a derivative shareholder lawsuit brought against it in August 2006, according to a filing the company made Tuesday. The lawsuit alleged that certain former and current officers and director “breached their fiduciary duties, and were unjustly enriched in connection with the timing of stock option grants from 1996 to 2001.”

As part of the settlement, filed with U.S. District Court in San Jose, some of the defendants have Read the rest of this entry »

The same day it released results for its 2008 first quarter, Monolithic Power Systems said that its reports for fiscal years 2006 and 2007 “should no longer be relied upon” after the company determined that its accounting for the tax effect of stock-based compensation related to a “cost-share” agreement it has with a foreign subsidiary was not recorded correctly.

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DemandTec’s senior vice president in charge of sales, John Crouch, is leaving as of tomorrow, the company reported in an SEC filing Tuesday. The move comes less than a month after the company released earnings for its fiscal 2008 fourth quarter that showed a profit 20 percent lower than analysts had expected. No reason was offered for the departure.

Shares of the San Carlos developer of consumer demand management software, which were first offered to the public on August 8 at $11 a share, rose above $20 in December but have crashed since, hitting an all-time low of $6.65 the day it released its fourth quarter results. Read the rest of this entry »

What a difference a year makes. Last year the Mercury News featured Terry Semel on the cover of our annual What The Boss Makes special section as the executive in the valley who got the biggest pay package in 2006, which we pegged at $71.7 million including options worth $71.4 million.

Yahoo updated history today when it released executive compensation information in an amendment to its annual 10-K financial filing. It seems Semel actually was paid -$6.2 million that year. How you get paid negative money we don’t know, so don’t ask. The oddity is a result of SEC rules for disclosures regarding stock-based compensation. The amounts listed under those categories are to match figures the company uses to account for compensation in its results or operations.

Yahoo reversed about $9.07 million in expenses recorded in 2006 after Semel forfeited some stock-based pay when he left the company.

Google amended its proxy Monday to update information about one of the directors on its board and chair of it audit committee, Ann Mather (pictured below), who joined its board in November 2005, which might be of interest to its shareholders in advance of their meeting. Read the rest of this entry »

NetSuite, the software company bankrolled by Oracle’s Larry Ellison that held its initial public offering in December, is spreading out at its current location. It agreed to lease an additional 34,000 square feet in the San Mateo building housing its headquarters, boosting its space more than 50 percent to 93,000 square feet.

It also looks to be paying dearly for the privilege, according to its filing today. Read the rest of this entry »

OK, this is a one-joke post so you don’t really need to read further, unless you actually are in the market to solve the vexing problem of how to lower your bill for private jet travel.

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Akeena Solar, the Los Gatos installer of solar systems to homeowners and small businesses, said in a filing late Friday afternoon that two days earlier its chief operating officer, James Curran, “advised the company he was tendering his resignation for personal reasons.”

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Feel the need to “Talk to Chuck” about his recent selling of more than $70 million in company stock?

The Charles Schwab Corporation thought you might, which could explain why it put out a press release Friday afternoon detailing why its big guy, Chuck, sold shares of company stock earlier that day. It seems the shares were acquired through the exercise of an option that was set to expire next month.

“Unexercised options are canceled upon expiration and therefore lose all value,” the release patiently explained to the great unwashed among us.

The option, granted in May 1998, was originally good for 700,000 shares priced at $34.69, and were part of “Mr. Schwab’s” (guess he’s not on a first nickname basis with the folks in PR) “long-term incentive compensation.” Three stock splits later the grant grew to 3.3 million shares priced at $7.35 per share.

Being forced to exercise them is one thing, but we’re assuming no one held a gun to his head to sell them all. The press release explains that “the exercised options were
immediately sold as part of Mr. Schwab’s long-standing practice of periodically selling shares for personal financial management purposes.” Were they sold through a Schwab broker, we wonder? The press release doesn’t say.

Just in case you’re feeling, well, envious the press release also explained that Chuck — we commoners are encouraged to call him Chuck — paid some $22 million of the $48 million profit he made to the tax man.

Finally, don’t be thinking this is a signal of any bearishness on Chuck’s part about his company’s stock: they shares sold were “less than 1.6 percent” of his holdings in the company. He still controls about 208 million more.

Micrel, the San Jose chip maker staring down a proxy battle with Obrem Capital Management, the dissident shareholder that wants to install its own slate on the company’s board, got more ammunition this week with which to argue that, in fact, it is creating shareholder value.

• Exhibit 1: Financial results for its most recent quarter, when it earned a 13-cent profit per share, 30 percent higher than analysts had been expecting. A Micrel representative passed along a couple analyst reports, extolling the news. “Proxy or Not, This Company is Growing,” was the headline from a report from Thomas Weisel Partners, which raised its
  12-month price target for Micrel shares by a buck to $12.
• Exhibit 2: The company increased its dividend by 16 percent on Thursday as well.
• Exhibit 3: A letter Micrel sent to shareholders Friday in which it called Obrem a “newly formed hedge fund that has never controlled or operated a company.” It said that four of Obrem’s six nominees are “investment and consulting professionals with zero operational experience.” The letter goes on to note that Obrem is currently “busy with another hostile campaign in which they are attempting to breakup a Canadian life sciences company.”

The most persuasive argument may be Micrel’s stock price, which gained 7 percent last week to close at $10.36 Friday. That’s 29 percent higher than the average price Obrem paid for its stake in Micrel, which it has held for 64 days.