Thursday, September 22, 2011

HP CEO May Be Ousted by Board


Hewlett-Packard’s board will most likely oust current CEO Leo Apotheker. According to James Bandler and Matt Vella of Fortune via CNNMoney.com, “a person familiar with the matter” stated the board would consider Meg Whitman as the permanent replacement.  Meg Whitman is best remembered as former eBay CEO and is currently a HP director.

Apotheker has been CEO for less than a year, but lately investors haven’t been happy with the company’s confusing communication on its future strategy. The company recently announced that it was restructuring. It would discontinue its TouchPad, WebOS, and consider getting out of the PC business. After the announcement, the company released a desktop, continued TouchPad marketing, and announced it would resurrect the TouchPad (although it’s clearly liquidating remaining product).  All of this is a completely different from the WebOS and TouchPad vision supported by the CEO when he first arrived.

News of the potential ouster and replacement by Whitman led HP’s stock up 8%.  This is compared to the 40% decrease in the stock value within the year.

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