SiliconBeat

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 »

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 »

My column in the Mercury News today takes a swipe at Boots Del Biaggio. But near the bottom, I also turn an eye toward Biaggio’s one-time friend Doug Bergeron, the chief executive officer of VeriFone:

“By the way, Bergeron - who sold $134 million worth of VeriFone stock from September 2005 to November 2007 - ran into his own problems in December when it was disclosed that his company had overstated its pretax profits by 80 percent. Oops.”

But apparently I was a bit behind the curve on that. In April, my colleague Steve Johnson posted a story about VeriFone’s disclosure that its misstatement was larger than originally thought, and that its CFO was stepping down. Johnson wrote:

“The maker of store checkout-counter devices that process credit card transactions announced Dec. 3 that it had found accounting errors that would require it to cut its previously stated operating profit for the nine months that ended July 31, 2007, by $29.7 million. But after a further investigation by its audit committee, which reviewed more than 5 million documents, the company said Wednesday its operating profit will have to be scaled back by $36.9 million.”

Yikes. Bergeron also said he was giving up the chairman’s role, but would stay on as CEO. But there was no word on whether he planned to give back any of the money he made from selling stock during the period when the company was overstating its profits (and enjoying a nice run up in the stock price).

The involvement of Bergeron with Del Biaggio is much bigger news in his native land of Canada. On Monday, the Toronto Globe and Mail ran a story recalling that Bergeron was supposed to be part of Boots’ group buying a stake in the NHL’s Nashville Predators. Last Fall, Boots told a Globe and Mail reporter:

“I don’t mind telling The Globe and Mail I’m very excited to have a Canadian billionaire as part of my group.”

The paper said it never confirmed that Bergeron was a billionaire. But it remains unclear why Bergeron dropped out of the group. And whatever the reasons, his finance firm DGB is now suing Boots for obtaining fraudulent loans.

I’m guessing the friendship is long since over. But I’m still left wondering what happened last fall. And how these two characters hooked up in the first place.