SiliconBeat

A week after performing a nearly complete makeover of its executive suite, Cadence Design (Nasdaq: CDNS)  said today that “it is reviewing, in conjunction with the company’s independent accountants and legal advisors, the recognition of revenue related to customer contracts signed during the first quarter of 2008.”

Cadence accountants happened to notice that $24 million of contract revenue in its recently completed third quarter was already recognized during its first quarter of the year. Oops. That already-recognized revenue should “have been recognized Read the rest of this entry »

Maxim Integrated Products, the Sunnyvale chip maker that had not filed financial reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission since May 2006 as it struggled to investigate and then account for years of incorrectly priced (i.e., backdated) options, filed six quarterly reports and three fiscal year reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission Tuesday.

The company determined the total extra value given to its executives, directors, employees and others who received backdated options since fiscal 1997 — the difference between the strike price on the options based on their original grant date and the correct price based on the date they were technically granted — was 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 »

Tuesday was Barry Zwarenstein’s last day as chief financial officer at VeriFone Holdings, the same day the company officially wiped out $70 million in past profits when it filed amended financial statements with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

In December the San Jose-based electronic payments company shocked investors when it said it had miscalculated its costs for inventory, manufacturing and distribution in its previous three quarterly reports.

In April, VeriFone’s board completed its investigation into the matter, an effort involving some 70 professionals and forensic accountants, Read the rest of this entry »

A special committee of the board of directors at Bell Microproducts found that “accounting errors and irregularities” it determined to have occurred at the company were caused by, among other things, “accounting decisions and entries that appear to have been directed at achieving financial results consistent with external estimates,” according to a release the company issued Monday.

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Two executives with UTStarcom, the Alameda telecommunications company that boasts providing “a world of better communications”, agreed to pay fines to help settle an SEC action against the men and the company in the wake of repeated restatements of the company’s financial results.

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The same day it released results for its 2008 first quarter, Monolithic Power Systems said that its reports for fiscal years 2006 and 2007 “should no longer be relied upon” after the company determined that its accounting for the tax effect of stock-based compensation related to a “cost-share” agreement it has with a foreign subsidiary was not recorded correctly.

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Bell Microproducts, the San Jose distributor of high-tech gear that had its Nasdaq listing
yanked last month for failure to file a string of financial reports with the SEC, last week modified the bonus plan for its principal financial officer, William Meyer.

The plan, set up in January, was modified so that the plan now “provides that for each of the four quarters in the 2008 calendar year, the payments under the Plan would be made at 100% of target. Mr. Meyer’s target for 2008 is $200,000,” according to a filing with the SEC Monday. That sounds like Meyer is being guaranteed a $50,000 bonus payment per quarter.

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Internal mistakes made by their own accountants and the failure of their auditors to catch them are the biggest factor behind a company’s financial restatements, according to a new academic study. The research, conducted by Marlene Plumlee of the University of Utah and Teri Lombardi Yohn of Indiana University, questions the view that most mistakes are the result of the complexity of accounting standards enacted in the wake of financial scandals earlier this decade.

The study, brought to our attention by Lynn Turner, a former chief accountant with the SEC, was an attempt to examine the dramatic increase in financial restatements by public companies over the past few years.

Critics of the Sarbanes-Oxley regulations that were put into place as correctives for financial scandals such as the Enron debacle have blamed the the legislation and its new accounting complexity for the increase, accusing it of regulatory overkill and the increase in accounting costs, especially for smaller companies.

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West Marine received notification from the SEC Jan. 14 that the agency’s informal inquiry begun in August into facts surrounding West Marine’s restatement of financial results “will continue under a formal order of investigation,” according to an 8-K filing Wednesday.

In May, West Marine completed a restatement financial results for fiscal years 2002 through 2005 and for the first three quarters of fiscal year 2006 related to inventory issues.

The SEC’s original informal inquiry began in August, and West Marine provided materials about the restatement to the agency in October, when we first flagged the news. The SEC staff then requested “additional materials relating to our inventory accounting practices from 2001 to 2006, among other things.”

West Marine shares are down 18 percent so far this year after losing nearly half their
value in 2007, as the company struggles with declining year-over-year sales for the past four quarters.