The dip, which hit the lowest price since May 2005, reflected investors‘ continued doubts about Whitman’s fitness to run the global computing giant. The stock later rebounded somewhat to close down 2.11%.
In a conference call Thursday with Whitman and HP board chair Raymond Lane, investors repeatedly asked if HP‘s board had hired Whitman too hastily. He insisted that HP had considered all of its options, and that Whitman was the best.
However, those concerns came up again in a TV interview on Friday, in which a CNBC anchor asked Lane if Whitman’s experience as the chief executive of EBay Inc., a Web company, qualified her to head a company that makes computers.
“Ronald Reagan was an actor,” Lane replied. “He was a pretty good president. OK?”
Whitman replaced former Chief Executive Leo Apotheker after an 11-month tenure that culminated in the announcement of major changes to HP, including the potential spinoff of its huge PC business, and the $10 billion purchase of Autonomy Corp., a business software-maker.
Nevertheless, those decisions turned out to be the board‘s strategy, not Apotheker’s. So investors now wonder if Whitman will continue on the same path, or try to move the company toward her own vision.
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