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Good news/bad news cycle continues at KLA-Tencor |
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Oct 17, 2006 at 01:14 PM |
KLA-Tencor has been riding a corporate roller-coaster these past few months, with the troubling news about the investigation of its stock-option backdating problems bumping up against the more positive news of the closing of the ADE deal.
But the news pendulum swings back toward the negative with the announcements that, because of findings by K-T's own special investigative committee, the company has severed all ties with former president, CEO, COO, and board member Ken Schroeder and that founder and former chairman Ken Levy has resigned. These two execs were largely responsible for guiding K-T's rise to the top tier of the semiconductor equipment manufacturing sector, and their exits must have hit the current leadership team hard.
In my interview with CEO Rick Wallace in the May 2006 issue of MICRO, he expressed great admiration for the "two Kens." They mentored Wallace and others of his generation in the ways of the chipmaking business, grooming them for leadership roles in the future. Now, because of the mistakes and missteps of the two former execs and others (the current leadership has been cleared, btw), K-T will need to restate financials by as much as $400 million in "additional noncash charges for stock-based compensation expenses."
Although it's unclear whether Schroeder and Levy will face any criminal charges or further legal repercussions as a result of the furor around the "incorrect measurement dates for certain stock option grants," their once-robust reputations have definitely taken a hit, both inside the industry they helped nurture and the company they built.
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