SiliconBeat

A week after reverse splitting its shares so that stockholders were given one share in exchange for every 15 they already owned, Avanex approved new restricted stock grants, including a grant for42,000 48,000 shares to its interim chief executive officer, Giovanni Barbarossa, and 28,000 shares to each of Bradley Kolb, senior vice president of operations, and Scott Parker, senior vice president of sales, according to a regulatory filing made Friday. Half of the shares in the grants, which were adopted as part of an “employee retention program”, vest after one year with the balance vesting after the second year.

Equivalent grants awarded before the split took place would have totaled 630,000 720,000 shares for the interim CEO and 420,000 for the two senior VPs.

Three days after the new grants were made, Avanex released financial results that helped send its shares down 32 percent. They closed Friday at a split-adjusted all-time low of $7.08. (Had the shares not reverse-split, which has the complementary effect of raising the stock price, the closing price Friday would have been about 47 cents.

Barbarrosa, who took on his role as interim CEO on July 7 following the firing of Jo Major “due to the inability of (Major) and the Board of Directors to work together effectively,” was previously the company’s chief technology officer. His salary was also boosted by $100,000 from his previous salary, which was not listed.