Hilarious: H.P.’s Board
In my book, this is corruption. Bunch of insiders with spotty track records at best hire one another at exorbitant rates to crush value:
Indeed, on the surface, it looks like H-P (HPQ 47.08, -0.46, -0.97%) has become a haven for failed executives. The biggest dismay was adding Meg Whitman, former chief of eBay Inc. (EBAY 30.92, +0.01, +0.03%), to a board that will number 13 after H-P’s annual meeting in March. More recently, Whitman achieved infamy for spending more than $160 million on a losing run for California governor. Her last years at eBay were marred in part by the $2.6 billion acquisition in 2005 of Internet phone service Skype, a deal that didn’t include its software code and never fit well within eBay.
Another gem on the remade board is Patricia Russo. Like H-P’s former CEO Carly Fiorina, Russo was once a rising star at Lucent Technologies, but was forced out as CEO of Alcatel-Lucent SA (ALU 3.31, +0.05, +1.53%) in 2008, after the difficult merger failed to achieve results, cultures clashed and losses widened.
Another new board member, Gary Reiner, had been at General Electric Co.(GE 19.99, +0.01, +0.05%) since 1996, but quit in March 2010 as chief information officer to “pursue other opportunities.” According to his bio on the H-P web site, Feiner has been a special adviser to General Atlantic, a private-equity firm, since last September.
Obvious but ignored:
You are putting four people onto this board who have failed elsewhere,” said Stephen Diamond, an associate professor of securities law and corporate governance at Santa Clara University’s law school.
“You hope that putting them together in the same room is going to help lead this iconic tech company into the future. One has to be very skeptical,” Diamond said.
Bizarre validation by the media, in this case by Tom Foremski of ZD Net, who apparently doesn’t know any other motivated tech executives:
These are all people who want to put their past behind them so I would say it is a highly motivated group. A good sign for HP.
-Shlok
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