SiliconBeat

Cypress Semiconductor will be cutting pay of “all applicable employees, including executive officers” on a sliding scale, at the beginning of its next fiscal quarter. In connection with the plan, executives will have their base salary reduced between 9 percent and 11 percent, the San Jose chip maker said in a filing today.

In the same filing, the company also reported that, after evaluating the company’s financial performance and each executive’s performance in relation to Read the rest of this entry »

Cypress Semiconductor finally got the $10.3 million it had invested in money market funds with the American Beacon Fund, according to a Friday filing.  In September the San Jose chip maker disclosed that the fund had frozen following a “significant increase in redemption orders.”

Not that Cypress was in any immediate need of the funds. As of Sept. 30, the company reported having about $628 million in cash and short-term investments. By the way, that roughly $30 million more than the entire company was valued by Wall Street at the close of trading last Friday.

No wonder its chief executive, TJ Rodgers, has been buying its shares.

The board of directors at Cypress Semiconductor gave Chief Executive T. J. Rodgers a “discretionary bonus” worth $100,000 last month, primarily in recognition of the company’s “successful spin-off of SunPower,” an event that took place in 2006, according to a regulatory filing made today. Cypress shareholders finally received their pay-out from the deal in September when the company divided its majority holding of SunPower stock among Cypress’s own shareholders.

Rather than paying Rodgers in cash, however, Read the rest of this entry »

SunPower, the San Jose maker of electronic devices used in solar power systems, is getting a new chief financial officer, which is one way to announce its losing its current one. Dennis Arriola will begin work next month when he will “work closely with retiring CFO, Manny Hernandez,” the company said in a release today.

Hernandez (pictured), 52,  joined SunPower in 2005, but was previously an executive at Cypress Semiconductor, the company that spun off SunPower into a separate company in November of that year. SunPower chief executive Tom Werner announced Hernandez’s planned retirement in an earnings call with analysts on July 15.  At the end of August, however, Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, the board of directors at Cypress Semiconductor set up a committee that will be authorized to approve the distribution to its stockholders of the shares it owns of SunPower, the maker of chips used in the generation of solar energy that it spun out into a separate company in 2005.

The special committee is expected to approve the distribution after the Securities and Exchange Commission completes its review of SunPower’s preliminary information statement filed with the SEC on Read the rest of this entry »

On Monday, Cypress Semiconductor sold 2.5 million shares of SunPower, the company it spun-off into a separate public entity in November 2005, reducing its ownership stake by 5.6 percent. Cypress continues to be SunPower’s single biggest stockholder, with 42 million shares, or 52.3 percent of SunPower shares outstanding, according to a filing with the SEC today.

The shares were sold to a private investor. The amount of the transaction was not detailed. SunPower shares rose 18 percent last Friday Read the rest of this entry »

Speaking of big pay days, Thurman John “”TJ” Rodgers led all insiders in stock sales. The chief executive officer of Cypress Semiconductor sold 1.5 million shares on Oct. 22 and 23 at
prices ranging from $33.03 per share to $34.65 per share to collect $51.3 million.

The tech veteran has now sold $137.0 million in Cypress stock since 1987.

Rodgers led a spasm of selling at Cypress last month, as a total of nine insiders sold $66.4 million. Cypress closed Thursday at $36.08, up more than $10 per share since early September, and from $15.92 one year ago.