Jon Marino of PEHub.com noted that P.E. firms are hiring and referenced a follow-up report for BDO USA’s third annual private equity “PErspective” report… 57% of private equity executives increased professional staffing and 62% plan to hire again this year.  This is a complete reversal from the layoff waves of prior years.  Here is more detail from that report.

Whether you like millionaires or billionaires or hate them, the one aspect that is so unfairly portrayed about companies bought by private equity firms is as follows: Most businesses bought by private equity firms need to be turned around or need to be run better.  Sure, they get leveraged up and they scrap inefficient operations.  The dirty secret that private equity firms are not defending enough is that many of these companies would have headed for bankruptcy in the long-term if they had not stepped in.  If that results in a liquidation rather than a pure bankruptcy, guess how many jobs get lost at those companies… all of them, rather than some.

The business sector is not just a one-way street.  Companies hire workers in good times and most fire in bad times.  We even ran our own 2011 Layoff Kings.

JON C. OGG

The company’s board of directors has noted, “Our hearts go out to his wife, Dalynn, his children and his family during this tragic time. Steve’s passion and energy left an indelible mark on Micron, the Idaho community and the technology industry at large. The company expects to provide additional information later today.”

Micron shares were halted ahead of today’s news.

The company just announced the retirement of COO Mark Durcan less than two weeks ago.

JON C. OGG

Keating has been a Director of the Group Finance.  The strategy change is to effect a split in the Irish and U.K. Retail Division into separate units for each country.  Each unit will be led by separate chiefs and both chiefs will be members of the group executive committee.  U.K. Retail will be led by Des Crowley; Ireland Retail will be led by Liam McLoughlin. The new structure’s implementation date is expected to be in mid-March of 2012.

Shares at the local level in Dublin were up 5.2% on last look, but the ADRs in New York were up 3.1% at $6.46 against an adjusted 52-week range of $3.99 to $27.00 if you account for the reverse split.

Our take: This could lead to more of a break-up or allow asset sales more easily down the road.  It certainly is not growth ambitions, but whatever adds to survival chances right now is what matters the most.

JON C. OGG

FULL PRESS RELEASE FROM THE P.R. DEPT. BELOW:

The Governor and Company of the Bank of Ireland (the “Bank of Ireland”)
1 February 2012

Bank of Ireland Announces Board and Executive Management Changes

Bank of Ireland has today announced changes to its Group Structure and to its Senior Executive Team.

Board Change
Andrew Keating has been appointed an Executive Director of Bank of Ireland and Group Chief Financial Officer with immediate effect, replacing John O’Donovan who has retired from that role.  Andrew was formerly Director of Group Finance where he spearheaded a major transformation of the Finance Division in the Bank of Ireland Group.  He joined Bank of Ireland in 2004, prior to which he held a number of senior finance roles with Ulster Bank having qualified as a chartered accountant with Arthur Andersen.

Andrew is also a Director of Bristol & West plc, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Bank of Ireland.

There are no details requiring disclosure for Andrew under paragraph 6.6.7 (2) to (6) of the Listing Rules.

Changes to Group Structure
Having embedded considerable benefits from the sharing of best practice and synergies in areas such as segment/product propositions, operational management and infrastructure the Group is enhancing the visibility of and focus on two of our most significant businesses.  Accordingly, for strategic management purposes we will split our Retail (Ireland & UK) Division into Retail Ireland Division and Retail UK Division.  Each will be headed up by separate Divisional Chief Executives who will be members of the Group Executive Committee.

Changes to Group Executive Committee
Des Crowley will be Chief Executive of the Retail UK Division where he will be responsible for the various UK based retail businesses within our subsidiary Bank of Ireland (UK) plc and outside the subsidiary.  Prior to this he held a number of positions on the Group Executive Committee since 2000, including Chief Executive, Retail Financial Services and Chief Executive UK Financial Services, having joined Bank of Ireland from Arthur Andersen.  As we work through the revised structure we will need FSA regulatory approval for key changes/appointments which we make during the course of transition.

Liam McLoughlin will be Chief Executive of the Retail Ireland Division, where he will be responsible for the Branch Network, Business Banking, Mortgages, Personal Lending, Debit & Credit Cards and Wealth Management.  Liam has been Head of Group Manufacturing since July 2009.  Prior to that he held a number of senior positions in the Capital Markets and Finance Divisions.  He joined Bank of Ireland in 2004 from Ulster Bank Group prior to which he had been Financial Controller with the National Treasury Management Agency.  Qualifying with PricewaterhouseCoopers he is a fellow of Chartered Accountants Ireland.

Senan Murphy joins Bank of Ireland to become Head of Group Manufacturing.  Senan , a chartered accountant , was most recently Chief Operating Officer and Finance Director at Ulster Bank whom he joined in 2008 having previously been Finance Director at Airtricity. Before that Senan worked in a number of senior roles in General Electric in both the US and Ireland.  In his role with Bank of Ireland, Senan will be responsible for managing and enhancing the Group’s infrastructure (including its technology), customer service and contact centres, collection activities, its customer payment activities and cash distribution.  Senan will be a member of the Group Executive Committee.

Mr Murphy will join the Bank shortly and will transition into his new role for the implementation date of the new Group Structure at which time Mr Crowley and Mr McLoughlin will formally take on their new roles.

The new Group Structure will have an implementation date of mid March 2012.

1 February 2012
 
Enquiries:
Dan Loughrey, Head of Group Corporate Communications Ph: 00-353-623-4770
Helen Nolan, Group Secretary Ph: 00-353-76-623-4710

Sony named Kazuo Hirai as president and CEO. He replaces Sir Howard Stringer, who has run the corporation since 2005, and over the past seven years has run it into the ground.

Stringer’s biggest mistake has been to stay in two segments of the consumer electronics industry. The first is the manufacturing and marketing of LCD screens, which is a low-margin business, if not a losing one. The other is that Sony continues to make PCs, although there are a number of other PC makers with much larger market share. And, of course, there is the Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) Mac.

During Stringer’s tenure, he was slow to get a world-class video game console into the market. PS3 sales have not been a disaster, but Sony has allowed its PS2 sales advantage to wither as Nintendo and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) have made market share gains. Whether Hirai’s engineers can upgrade the PS3 enough to take substantial market share, particularly from Microsoft, is an open question. Certainly, the process will be hard.

Stinger also made the odd move of taking over the half of the Sony Ericsson smartphone joint venture that Sony did not already own. Sony Ericsson sits in the market well behind the Apple iPhone, Nokia (NYSE: NOK) and a number of Android-powered products from electronics giant Samsung and nimble operators such as HTC. Even Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) has a better share than Sony Ericsson, which is extraordinary, given the Canadian company’s missteps. Stringer believes that Sony smartphones somehow can be tethered to its content and consumer electronics products. In other words, there is a hidden synergy between Sony’s current businesses and the smartphone company it has taken over in full.

Sony lost its lead in a number of consumer electronics arenas a decade ago. Stringer made the problem worse as Sony’s attempts at innovation failed. Now Hirai has to make Sony a success again, and that is too much to ask of any executive.

Douglas A. McIntyre

The guidance on January 5 was victim of soft sales in the first two months of the quarter generating slightly negative same-store sales for its fourth quarter with non-GAAP earnings coming in a range of $0.65 to $0.70 earnings per share.

Our thesis was simple” For new investors, this is not a fourth quarter story.  This is not a story of guidance for the current quarter, and it may not even be a story of strong results in 2012… Ron Johnson is set to transform the look and feel of this company entirely.”

Penney’s shares at the time of our call were down over 6% on that day at $32.75.  The problem now, if there is a problem, is that the new concept unveiling and the leaner retail worker structure has met a guidance presentation all in one week.

A gain of 15% to $39.48 on Thursday now has shares up 20%.  Why is this a problem?  The consensus analyst target is down under $34.00 and the 52-week trading range is $23.44 to $41.00.  It was known that Ron Johnson was going to use his Apple magic to transform the company.  It was known that he was going to have the presentations.

A 20% gain in three weeks is generally a gift no matter how you cut it.  Even if analysts raise their price target objectives substantially, at a minimum we would only look to enter on a pullback now.  Taking at least some profit at this point would not hurt anyone even if it is only on part of the position.

JON C. OGG

By nearly any reasonable measurement, because of the length of his tenure and management seniority, Thorsten Heins is as much a part of RIM’s problems as he possibly could be it solutions.

Heins worked at RIM’s top tier as the company lost its lead position among the world’s smartphone makers. He was COO when RIM stumbled in the tablet PC market with its PlayBook. He helped run RIM through service outages last year that lasted three days. He has been part of the management team that allowed RIM to be flanked by Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and an army of Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) Android-powered devices from companies such as HTC and Samsung.

RIM has not really changed its management at all. Mike Lazaridis, former co-chair and co-CEO, has become vice chair of RIM’s board and chair of the board’s new Innovation Committee. He will remain a daily presence at a company he has ineptly managed for years. Jim Balsillie remains a member of the board. Outside shareholders can fairly argue that the two men responsible for the demise of RIM have not been banished. The two may not even change the locations of their offices. That makes it impossible for Heins to quickly put his mark on RIM, and RIM needs a new mark immediately, if it is not too late already.

Investors should be stunned by the Heins appointment. They should be rattled by the fact that Lazaridis and Balsillie will remain on the board. They should believe that Heins has only the most modest ability to set the company on a new course and, as member of senior management for years, he was part of a group that made and carried out RIM’s flawed strategy.

Investors have hoped that RIM would be sold, because it is no longer a viable standalone company. It is losing its core business too quickly and will not have new products in the market until the end of this year. Instead, Wall St. is given Heins, who cannot claim that he his the right person to take RIM in a new direction because he has been such a critical part of the old one.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Thorsten Heins was made president and chief executive and joined the board. Mike Lazaridis, former co-chair and co-CEO, has become vice chair of RIM’s board. His peer, Jim Balsillie, remains a member of the board.

Research in Motion held the clear lead in the global smartphone business from the time it launched the BlackBerry in 1999 until three years ago. Then Apple’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone and an army of Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) Android-based smartphones began to gain share. RIM had 20% of the world’s smartphone sales two years ago, by some estimates. That number has fallen by at least half.

In the last year, RIM’s earnings prospects have fallen consistently. It entered the competitive table PC market a year ago with its PlayBook tablet, but sales were so poor the company took at $485 million third quarter write-off.

RIM’s problem now is that the appointment of one person is too little, and much too late. Apple has too large a lead, and firms that include Samsung and HTC are also remarkable successes. RIM has no set of new features or services to launch to get it back business in a sector in which product advances come in months and not years.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Cornell is 52 years of age, so this is not retirement.  He is being replaced by Rosalind G. Brewer, who is 49 years old, as president and CEO of Sam’s Club.  She will report directly to Mike Duke and her effective date will be February 1.  She was most recently president of the Walmart U.S. east business unit.

• The company also noted that Rollin Ford, who is 49 years old, is being promoted to chief administrative officer (CAO) for the company, effective February 1.  ‪
• Another change is that Gisel Ruiz is being promoted to executive vice president and chief operating officer for Walmart U.S. with an effective date of February 1.  She is 41 years of age.
• Karenann Terrell is being promoted to chief information officer for the company with an effective date of February 1. She is 50 years of age.

Today may not seem like much of an event-driven stock moving event.  It may be more symbolic than anything.  Still, it stood out.  Wal-Mart stock is also at a crossroads right now as it is looking as though it wants to break out of a very long-term trading range.  Wal-Mart shares are up 0.4% today at $60.87 and the 52-week trading range is $48.31 to $61.06.

JON C. OGG

As far as how this matters, it is twofold… Yahoo! is barely half of its market value today compared to when Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) made its buyout offer.  Jerry Yang’s role in that acquisition at the time was “Chief Reality Blocker.”  By resigning from the boards of Alibaba and Yahoo! Japan, now the company will be better able to monetize those assets.

This is classified as a resignation.  In reality this is a force-out.  Needless to say, many investors are going to be glad to see Jerry Yang out of the way.  Very, Very Glad!

We have been curious as to why Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) has kept Jerry Yang on its board of directors as a non-employee director.

Yahoo! shares closed down 0.3% at $15.43 on Tuesday and shares are up 3.3% at $15.95 in the after-hours session.

JON C. OGG

After the close on Tuesday came word that Bill Veghte has been appointed as the company’s Chief Strategy Officer.  It was noted, “In addition to his new responsibilities, Veghte will continue in his current role as executive vice president of HP Software.”  And later in the release it noted, “Veghte will lead HP’s cloud and webOS open source initiatives.”

EVP of HP Software as Strategy head… a former SAP head booted out… a giant Autonomy acquisition… naming Meg Whitman as CEO with internet experience… and keeping the PC unit because it would cost too much to get rid of.  Does anything here tell you that the future direction of HP is going backwards into more and more hardware?

HP noted that this further signals its “commitment to providing customers with the latest platforms, products and services needed for success in a rapidly changing world.”

As far as Veghte’s past, he joined HP in 2010 and was credited for helping to grow HP’s software business by 18% in the most recent year.  Before joining HP he spent ‘two decades’ at Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) “in a variety of senior leadership positions” and it was noted that he managed the company’s $15 billion global Windows business and was called “instrumental in the delivery and launch of Windows 7.”

JON C. OGG