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VeriFone, the San Jose maker of point-of-sale electronic payment systems, said that GTCR Golder Rauner, a private equity firm that led the company’s initial recapitalization in 2002 and has continued to be a major shareholder since, has told the company it has distributed about 7 million of its shares to their fund participants.

The Chicago firm, which owned Read the rest of this entry »

Well, that didn’t take very long.

Within a month of departing VeriFone after completing that company’s restatement of results from fiscal 2007 that lopped off $70 million worth of profits because of “material weaknesses” in the company’s financial reporting process, ex-CFO Barry Zwarenstein re-surfaced Wednesday as the new chief financial officer at Smart Modular Technologies.

We previously wrote about Zwarenstein’s separation agreement which, among other things, guaranteed that the only information VeriFone would give to any prospective employers doing background checks in the future would be Read the rest of this entry »

VeriFone Holdings, the San Jose supplier of electronic payment systems that last month completed a restatement of several quarters of financials since 2007 that lopped off $70 million worth of previous profits, named Silicon Valley veteran Bob Dykes (pictured) to help leads its “continued growth and stability,” according to a press release Tuesday afternoon.

Dykes, a 30-year financial veteran who has served as CFO at major valley companies such as Read the rest of this entry »

VeriFone holdings, the electronic payment systems provider that last week lopped off $70 million worth of previous profits when it restated results of several quarters since fiscal 2007, named two new directors to its board, raising the size of the board from eight to ten directors. Both will serve on the board’s audit committee.

For at least one of the newbies, the committee assignment should be a no brainer. 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 »

Shares of VeriFone were heavily discounted by traders on Wall Street Monday after the biggest maker of electronic-payment equipment used by anyone using plastic to pay for stuff at stores shocked investors by reporting that financial statements for its last three quarters should not be relied on any longer because of accounting issues related to its inventory.
Insiders at VeriFone Holdings have lightened their own inventories of company stock this year by more than $320 million.
Three-fourths of that has been done by GTCR Golder Rauner, the Chicago-based investment firm that backed VeriFone prior to its re-emergence as a public company in 2005. Since then the firm has sold about 75 percent of its VeriFone shares for $700 million. The 8.9 million shares it still owns dropped nearly $200 million in value Monday as Verifone stock fell 46 percent to $26.03 at the end of the trading day.
Douglas Bergeron, the company’s chief executive who told shareholders in a statement Monday he was “very disappointed to have to bring you this news and am committed to ensuring that we promptly and thoroughly remedy this situation and move forward with the business of delivering value” to them, has sold at least 1.4 million shares so far in 2007 through a trading plan set up a year ago. He got $54.6 million for the shares.
To date, few VeriFone insiders have been buyers of their company stock. Three directors have purchased a total of 7,000 shares since its second IPO, most recently a year ago when Alex Hart bought 1,000 shares at $36.78 each.
Perhaps this is a good buying opportunity for a company that saw its net cash from operations grow to $93 million for the first nine months of fiscal 2008, up from $14 million in the same period the year before. Assuming that the cash-flow statements aren’t among the things that end up being restated, that is.

If you haven’t heard of VeriFone Holdings (ticker: PAY), you’ve probably used one of its ubiquitous payment devices when you swiped your credit card or ATM card at the local grocery store. The company recently announced that revenues had grown 57 percent in the third quarter.

That’s more icing for GTCR Golder Rauner, the Chicago-based investment firm that backed VeriFone and has had two partners serving as board members. The company went public in April 2005, bucking a lackluster IPO market. Since then, GTCR has sold $708.6 million worth of VeriFone stock, and still holds 9.7 million shares. That includes $127.4 million GTCR collected on Sept. 13 when it sold 3.3 million shares at $38.61 per share.

With GTCR’s holdings winding down, VeriFone announced last month that one of those GTCR board members was stepping down.