Alvarion CEO Out Leaving, Stock Drops on Loss
So much for holding onto its recent stock-price bump — WiMAX gear maker Alvarion took a big hit Wednesday, after its CEO announced his intentions to quit, and after a quarter filled more with promises than revenues.
Tzvika Friedman, president and CEO of Alvarion, said today he didn’t want to lead the company anymore, never good news no matter which way it gets spun. Lumped on top of a $4 million loss for the second quarter of 2009, the bad news was enough to send Alvarion stock down 78 cents a share to $3.96, a 16 percent dive.
Though Alvarion seems poised to take advantage of an apparent building momentum for WiMAX infrastructure spending, it’s not a sign of strength or good strategy when the CEO position is in a state of flux. (As opposed to Clearwire, which handled its CEO change fairly seamlessly this spring.) More as we hear more — or please feel free to add your views to the comments thread.
UPDATE: To clarify our earlier headline, it should be noted that CEO Friedman is not leaving until a replacement is found — the word we are hearing from inside is that “in Israel, everything leaks” so the company wanted to announce the search publicly instead of having to deal with rumors of the CEO leaving. Is this way better?
