SiliconBeat

Motorola added to the growing mix of ways companies are trying to preserve cash during the current economic downturn by discontinuing their matching of employee contributions to the company’s 401(k) pension plan, beginning Jan. 1, 2009, according to a filing it made with the SEC. And on March 1, future benefit accruals and compensation increases will cease for participants under plan as of Feb. 28. (Vesting in the plan will continue for those not already fully vested.)

Given that step, the company also decided to modify Read the rest of this entry »

Motorola filed an update to its employment agreement drawn up in February with co-chief executive Gregory Brown that included information about his stock-based incentive. The size and complexity of the equity awards rival the multiple cash bonus awards we previously wrote about.

The multiple stock awards, which were apparently granted July 31 and vest over the next three years, include: Read the rest of this entry »

Motorola, the troubled communications hardware maker that plans to split its operations into two different publicly held companies, named Qualcomm Chief Operating Officer Sanjay Jha (pictured) to be one of its co-chief executives. Jha will head up the company’s mobile devices division, once the producer of must-have cell phones that failed to keep pace.

Getting an executive to defect from a successful business like Qualcomm, a maker of wireless chips whose stock has risen by more than a third so far this year,to join Motorola, whose shares have dropped nearly 40 percent so far this year after losing 22 percent in 2007. Does not come cheap. Read the rest of this entry »

Carl Icahn — shareholder activist or corporate raider, you decide — sent out a variation of his cage-rattling letters to the board of Motorola the same day it made its “much delayed and long overdue” (his characterization, not ours) announcement that it would spin off its mobile devices division into a separate company.

The letter, contained in a filing his Icahn Associates made with the SEC today, expresses”concerns about the speed and manner in which a new management team is selected for the Mobile Devices business and the separation transaction is consummated. Time is of the essence and decisive action is required,” Icahn wrote.

He then asks some questions, two of which seem a bit rhetorical: Read the rest of this entry »

Gregory Brown, Motorola’s chief executive since the first of the year, got a raise befitting his promotion from chief operating officer of the company that sells products “that make a broad range of mobile experiences possible.” Here’s one mobile experience it might care to overlook: the downward mobility of its stock, which fell 19 percent Jan. 23 after the company reported its fourth quarter profit dropped 84 percent.

It may be a good time to be taking over the reins of Motorola from ex-Silicon Valley star Ed Zander, as there looks to be a bit of upside opportunity.

Read the rest of this entry »