Tuesday, November 30, 2004

WSJ.com - Carly Fiorina's Rough Ride

WSJ.com - Carly Fiorina's Rough Ride: "WSJ: Since you became H-P's CEO the stock has fallen by more than half. Why?
Ms. Fiorina: There's no question that when we are inconsistent, that hurts us. But I think it's much more than that. When I came in to H-P in the latter half of 1999, this was a company that had missed nine quarters of earnings in a row in the middle of the biggest tech boom in history. We were growing at 2% to 3%. Even our vaunted imaging-and-printing group was earning less than half of what it is today. People forget that.
Then we announced the Compaq merger [in late 2001], which was absolutely the right move, but it was very unexpected. Most people didn't think we could pull [the deal] off, and most people didn't think we could execute it. All that uncertainty weighs on the stock. Now we're in a period where we've integrated the company, and over the course of the last two and a half years, have produced $2 billion more in revenue than analysts estimated. But it hasn't been consistent performance quarter over quarter. So now we have to execute."

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