A good point on Jobs vs the Options....

[samintx]

Looking at this as a shareholder Jobs still has dirt on his hands even tho he said he gave back his options. Some good points made here.



another thoughtful article

[jimbrady]

If I were still a shareholder, I would be praying any hint of scandal related to Jobs goes FAR, FAR away.

[anonymouse1]

Nope. Jobs may have dirt on his hands, but nothing in either of these articles shows that he does. It's a lot of innuendo, IMHO.

[OWC Larry]

Apple appears to be simply sloopy with their whole executive compensation and options handling - and really nothing more than that.

This is contrast to the real options scandles out there where significant values relative to company valuation were involved, intentionally not reported to shareholders (as would have had a significant impact on the stock value and thus net value of the shares from the options spread), intentionally done to fraudulently benefit those who received.

Very different to Apple's situation where the issue was more about procedures not followed, short cuts taken, and the options were reported - just later than they should have been or should have been reported as backdated if that's the case. Either way, I do not believe the shareholders were affected in terms of stock price related to the timing of the reporting - which would be the biggest thing the SEC would take a hardline on. And in terms of impact - not talking about that related to the 'scandal' itself - talking about 1997 to 2002 as to how the timing may have impacted the price of the stock as dictated by how shareholders took the disclosure of options being issued when the disclosures were made.

Mom and Pop get hurt if they bought stock on say April 15th and then the stock took a hit on June 10th (or any point after related to what should have been reported PRIOR to their purchase) that really should have already been a factor in the trading price on say March 30th (or any time before their purchase and disclosure when it came) resulting in them paying a higher price than they should have if the options issueance had been disclosed when it was supposed to have been.

The bigger and more visible the company - the more media attention it gets for the good and, especially the bad.... right or wrong, it's easier to sensationalize stories, etc of a larger image/exposure than small.

It's why a real crime might be read about in the back of the paper, but a smaller incident quasi-crime that can be blown up and make questions come to mind over nada be a front page story.

Big stories related to those at the top sell papers and get eyes.... Few really could care less, for example, about Comverse and their real scandal unless you happen to be a stockholder of that company.

[jimbrady]

heh, "sloopy."

[OWC Larry]

Darn it - need to get FireFox 2.0 onto this Mac.... built in spelling/typo correction.

[quote jimbrady]heh, "sloopy."

[Racer X]

Hang on sloopy!