Selectica, the San Jose developer of contract-management software, said Wednesday that it is delaying the release of its fiscal 2009 fourth quarter and full-year financial results as the company reviews the accounting for the sale of its Indian subsidiary.
That sale, described in a press release on April 6, involved Read the rest of this entry »
Selectica has a new major investor that put the San Jose developer of contract-management software on notice Thursday that it will likely be hearing more from it in the near future.
Trilogy of Austin, Texas, through its principal business Versata Enterprises, a provider of “enterprise software products and services”, revealed Friday having acquired a 5.1 percent stake in Selectica after spending Read the rest of this entry »
Selectica got some good news sent its way earlier this month from the San Francisco office of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which told the company that an informal investigation it had undertaken into the company’s past stock option granting practices “has been terminated, and Read the rest of this entry »
Selectica’s replacement CEO, Robert Jurkowski — who took over after the previous CEO was fired back in August because of his involvement with backdating when he served as chief financial officer — has quit and resigned from the board as well, where he was chairman.
The board will now be co-chaired by Read the rest of this entry »
Selectica caught up on its financial reporting to the SEC Wednesday with the filing of three quarterly reports and one annual report. The filings had been delayed while a special committee of the board of directors conducted an independent investigation into the company’s stock option granting practices.
The move came a day after Maxim Integrated Products became the first Silicon Valley company to be delisted from the Nasdaq stock market because of delays in filing reports to the SEC due to complications involving stock option investigations.
Selectica’s special committee released its conclusions August 24, saying that some “retrospective selection” of option grant dates had in fact taken place (read our post about it). That same day it named a new chief executive and the demoted the old chief executive, who had previously been Selectica’s chief financial officer when much of the back dating took place.
In a press release Wednesday announcing completion of its delinquent filings, Selectica said that the adjustments to account for options that were mispriced, primarily from fiscal years 2001 to 2005, totaled $5.8 million. While that was a “non-cash” accounting charge, the company also shelled out $4.5 million in hard cold cash to pay for “professional service fees related to the stock-option investigation.”
Not an insignificant amount when you consider the company’s recent financial reports. Selectica, which makes Internet sales software, reported a net loss of $20.9 million in fiscal 2007 on $14.7 million in sales, which fell 37 percent from the year before. Net loss for the fiscal 2008 first quarter was $2.3 million on sales of $4.3 million, which were down 17 percent from the year-before quarter.
“Completing our financial restatement and coming current with our regulatory filings was a top priority for the Company, and we are pleased to have brought closure to this issue,” said CEO Robert Jurkowski in a statement. “We can now move forward without distraction on our plans to drive growth and profitability in the business and create long-term value for our shareholders.”
Selectica filed an 8-K Monday, making its Friday press release regarding the replacement of its chief executive because of his involvement and/or awareness with stock option backdating practices an official part of its SEC record.
Included is the employment agreement with the company’s new CEO, Robert Jurkowski., who will receive a $360,000 yearly salary and a target bonus of $90,000. He will be granted an option for 600,000 shares “as soon as reasonably practicable on or after the date of this Agreement”, which was dated Aug. 21.
So far, no Form 4 filing has landed regarding the option grant. Selectica shares hit a 52-week low of $1.42 earlier this month and closed at $1.46 on the date the agreement was made. In the meantime the shares have risen 13 percent and closed at $1.65 today. Ouch.
Enterprise software developer Selectica (ticker SLTC) threw out its chief executive Friday and got a new one.
The old one, Stephen Bennion, “was aware of or was involved with retrospective selection” of some stock option grant dates (also known as back dating) while serving as the San Jose company’s then chief financial officer, the company said in a press release distributed by PRNewswire. Bennion also received some backdated options himself, but the special committee investigating the problem can’t prove that he backdated his own grant, which they say he never exercised.
As for the back dating activity he was “aware of or was involved with,” the committee
can’t prove he was “intentionally” doing wrong, or that he “understood” the activity
“would result in a misstatement of the Company’s financial results.”
Why would a CFO know about stuff like that?
Let’s play a guessing game, shall we?
On Thursday, Selectica of San Jose filed an 8-K disclosing that its board had voted earlier this month to raise the salary of its chief financial officer, Bill Roseschlein, to $250,000, though the company didn’t disclose his previous salary. Still, that’s a decent paycheck even in Silicon Valley dollars. He could also get a performance bonus of $62,500.
But more intriguing was this: The company, which helps other companies develop online sales systems, will give him a bonus of $25,000 based on the “successful completion of a particular assignment prior to the close of fiscal year 2008.”
Send in your best guess as to what that “particular assignment” is, and the winner will get, well, the satisfaction of being right.
And by the way, he’s not the only one assigned to the “particular assignment” team. Steve
Goldner, the company’s vice president of engineering, could also get a bonus of $25,000 based on the “successful completion of a particular assignment.”
Subscribe via RSS all feeds - Tech feed - O'Brien feed - Docu-Drama feed - Pink Slip 2.0 feed
