In the Dock – Steve Jobs

By Judge Dredd

STEVE Jobs, Apple’s ebullient chief executive, is a visionary as famous himself as his company’s hugely successful iPods. He’s also in trouble.

Although the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC), America’s leading regulatory body, has now closed its investigation into Apple’s somewhat fuzzy stock options backdating practices, Jobs’ problems are not over yet. His applecart has been upset by fresh claims from Fred Anderson, Apple’s former chief financial officer.

Anderson, who has reached a settlement with the SEC involving $3.5m (Pounds 1.7m, E2.5m) in fines and penalties but without admitting to any wrongdoing, claimed he warned Jobs as early as 2001 of the problems that could arise from backdating millions of share options allocated to senior executives.

Apple’s board said it wouldn’t “enter into a public debate” with Anderson, but again expressed confidence in Jobs’s “integrity and ability”. They also emphasied that they remained happy with Apple’s independent investigation into improper dating of stock options, which exonerated Jobs of misconduct last year.

Jobs will survive the affair, but the tragedy is that it has sullied his hard-won reputation as one of America’s most talented businessmen. Under his watch, the firm’s quarterly profit jumped 88%. Profits were $770m in its fiscal second quarter, compared with $410m a year ago. Revenue rose 21% to $5.26bn as Apple sold 10.5m iPods in just three months up 24% on a year ago.

Pity, then, that the options nonsense continues to drag on. For Jobs is Apple and Apple is Jobs damage to one will hit the other.

(c) 2007 Sunday Business; London (UK). Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.