SiliconBeat

Trident Microsystems shares got hammered after hours on Monday after the company reported a slew of news, including results for its fiscal 2008 fourth quarter and guidance for its current quarter, a 10-year extension of its shareholder rights plan (AKA poison pill), and the permanent appointment of the company’s previously interim chief financial officer.

The company said it earned 11 cents per share, which blew past the 3 cents that most analysts were expecting. Unfortunately, Trident’s guidance for sales in its fiscal 2009 first quarter was for $32 million to $36 million, way below the $44 million Wall Street was expecting.

After-hours trading of Trident shares sent the stock’s price down 61 cents, or 15.8 percent, to $3.86, near its 52-week low. They have lost 40 percent of their value so far this year. The low stock price probably explains why the company’s board decided to extend until 2018 the poison-pill plan it could choose to swallow if a hostile investor decides to accumulate 15 percent or more of the company.

The company also announced that it was making Pete Mangan’s assignment as CFO permanent. He’d
been working on an interim bases since his hiring in January.

One thing you wouldn’t have known had you read only the press releases Trident put out today was that Trident’s vice president of sales, Ben Lee, quit 10 days ago. News of that was included only in the body of the actual 8-K filing, at the very end.