In addition to its decision to layoff 10 percent more of its workforce, chip-equipment maker KLA-Tencor also decided to take away two-thirds of the discount it gives to employees buying shares of the company through its employee stock purchase plan.
Previously, employees were able to buy shares at a 15 percent discount, which has Read the rest of this entry »
A class-action lawsuit against KLA-Tencor and various of its current and former directors and officers over stock option backdating was dismissed last week, providing a full release of the company and the named defendants, but not before the company paid $65 million “for the benefit of the settlement class”: namely folks who bought KLA-Tencor stock from Read the rest of this entry »
Mark Dentinger, former chief financial officer of BEA Systems prior to its acquisition by Oracle, will start next week as the new CFO at KLA-Tencor, a supplier of chip-making equipment.
Dentinger spent nine years at BEA Systems, “during which he managed all aspects of finance, investor relations, legal, facilities, and information technology, among various other financial roles within the company,” according to a filing KLA made Friday with the SEC.
One thing BEA and KLA have in common: both were forced to restate results after internal investigations at each determined that many option awards to employees were improperly dated. Read the rest of this entry »
KLA-Tencor said its chief financial officer, Jeffrey Hall, will resign at the end of this
month to “pursue an opportunity closer to his mid-western hometown,” according to a filing Monday. Hall, who started at KLA in 2000 as director for mergers and acquisitions, became CFO in January 2006.
We’re not sure where in the heartland he hails from but Hall got his bachelor’s degree in finance from Indiana University and his master’s degree in business administration from the University of Dayton.
Stuart Nichols, the man who wouldn’t act as “war-time counselor” to KLA-Tencor’s then chief executive Ken Schroeder in his battle to win battles for talent during the bubble years using questionable stock option practices, surfaced Monday as the new chief lawyer for MIPS Technologies.
Nichols resigned as general counsel at KLA-Tencor last year the same day that the company “terminated” its employment agreement with its former CEO in the wake of an investigation that uncovered misdated stock options. It was also the same day that the company’s founder and chairman, Ken Levy, chose to “retire”.
Nichols authored a “Stock Options Pricing” memo sent to Schroeder in March 2001 warning him that selecting grant prices with hindsight required the company to take a compensation charge, and that doing so without disclosing the fact could run afoul of the law, according to a civil action filed by the SEC against Schroeder in July.
In an e-mail reply, Schroeder asked Nichols to “Help me, don’t just tell me how to follow a strict interpretation of rules. I need a “”war-time counselor,” not someone who can recite page and verse.” Schroeder’s behavior continued as late as 2005, despite legal advice from Nichols that doing so was against the rules, the SEC alleges.
In August, the SEC accused KLA’s former general counsel prior to Nichols, with intentionally misdating ”dozens” of grants between 1997 and 2003 and of providing KLA a guide on how to backdate options when she left the company in 1999 to join Juniper Networks.
Nichols’ new employer had its own brush with option-backdating practices and took a charge of $46 million to account for mispriced options granted from 1999 through 2003 when it finally filed its 10-K for fiscal year 2006.
Nichols, who will be paid $250,000 a year and be eligible to receive a bonus of between
$100,000 and $200,000 a year, will also be given an option for 250,000 shares of MIPS, according to his offer letter. The timing of their grant date is meticulously spelled out in his Nov. 14 offer letter from the company’s chief executive: “Currently, new hire options are granted on the last Thursday of each month and are priced using the market closing price on that date.”
That would be Thursday, Nov. 29, a date that will nevertheless be rather well-timed: MIPS shares touched a 52-week low Monday of $5.69.
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