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Novell, Dell Face Delisting From NASDAQ
Posted by
kdawson
on Thu Sep 21, 2006 11:37 AM
narramissic writes to tell us that Novell has confirmed receiving a delisting notice from the NASDAQ stock exchange, after the software company delayed filing its most recent quarterly report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Dell is in the same position. Both companies, and others including Apple, are grappling with investigations of the way they issued stock options and — in Dell's case — other accounting irregularities. Both companies are appealing the delisting, which means they won't vanish from the stock exchange anytime soon. NASDAQ rules require listed companies to announce the receipt of a delisting notice.
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Delisting is a long, slow process... (Score:3, Informative)
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probably starting with 'E'... DELLE
Non-story anyway. (Score:5, Insightful)
Once they get those stats straight and file the paperwork, they'll be back in compliance and out of delisting danger (from this issue).
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Stock Option Backdating (Score:5, Informative)
For those uninitiated with the process, stock option backdating is a form of option fraud whereby options which should be dated at time B (when the executive was hired, for example) but are instead backdated time A (when they are 'in the money') to insure a profit for the executive. It's crass and obviously illegal.
Watch the video and you'll enjoy seeing our representatives (on both sides of the isle) enjoying a collegial and humorous discussion on the record with those who should have been asked numerous uncomfortable questions about the practice. There are, fortunately, some very pointed questions. But the session often comes off as a giveaway to the witnesses, with senators and witnesses often laughing together at in-jokes.
If you're bothered by stock market insiders fraudulently diverting profits to their friends instead of keeping the market fair and clean, this committee session will make your blood boil.
Re:Stock Option Backdating (Score:4, Informative)
What is illegal is informing your stockholders that options will be granted one way and then granting them a different way.
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Re:Stock Option Backdating (Score:4, Insightful)
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Stock option accounting? Amateurs... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not focus on the REAL crime in accounting: the handling of pensions and health care obligations? For decades they were allowed to basically say, "hey, when it comes time to pay you, trust us, we'll have new revenues, and we'll pay you out of that". By not putting these obligations on the balance sheet now, millions of workers' pensions are at risk, and the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation may go bankrupt as corporations try to shuck defined benefit plans (which are stupid anyway, but I digress). For GM and I'm sure several others, the present value of these obligations would more than cancel out their entire book value, i.e., the nominal value of all assets they hold. Oops!
And this isn't about some high-paid employees getting a little extra cash. This is about *retirement money*. And they're still allowed to hide the true cost of these things.
Someone's priorities are out of order...
Retirement plans and the government. (Score:5, Insightful)
Why should the government make the companies do that? They do exactly the same thing with Social Security. Just substitute "Federal Treasury" for "Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation".
The fed "borrows" from the Social Security "trust fund", substituting special treasury bonds with ridiculously low interest rates, and these bonds are NOT included in the national debt calculation. Then the fed spends the money - which will eventually have to be made up from other taxes.
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in 2001, Delisting was begining (Score:5, Informative)
VA Linux faced a NASDAQ delisting in 2001, due to their penny-stock status (3 months of a closing price under $1.00 leads to delisting). NASDAQ gave everybody a 3-month repreive following the 9/11 bombings, by which time they managed lay off most of their employees, stop hemoraging cash, and escape delisting.
Oddly enough, that wasn't "news for nerds" or "stuff that matters" -- it was -1 troll. I wonder if it still is :)
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Apple not under investigation (Score:3, Informative)
Source: http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=2049 [appleinsider.com]
Dude! (Score:3, Funny)
Not as doomsday as the summary suggests... (Score:3, Informative)
A significant number of companies are having to restate past and current earnings (the latter is what is causing the delisting notices to go out, because the 10-Q for the most recent ended quarter has to also be restated) so given the situation, the flurry of delisting notices is not surprising. NASDAQ maintains a daily list of companies not in compliance [nasdaq.com] with continued listing requirements; today's list (9/21) had about 70 or so companies delinquent on their quarterly or annual reports (10-Q and 10-K) to the SEC. Most of the other companies don't meet the minimum $1 bid price (a company's shares trading below $1 for more than thirty days are served a notice of intent to delist, and have 180 days to come back into compliance.
Other reasons that could result in a delisting letter from NASDAQ include failure to maintain:
Other notable companies that face delisting include nVidia, Autodesk, BEA Systems, CNET, Verisign, and the Cheesecake Factory. The reason? Delinquent 10-K or 10-Q filings.
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I find it funny that people think that if it isn't new it must be replaced. As long as you can get replacement parts for the hardware it should be work for a very long time.
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Novell is still around (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Novell? (Score:4, Informative)
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they is also zenworks application deployment which is very very usefull if you have lots of users using lots of different software and moving arround a lot (read: students)
afaict netware makes thier money
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Thank God (Score:3, Funny)
Uh, you might wanna rethink hugging that... (Score:5, Funny)
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