Sudden VeriSign CEO Switch Raises Eyebrows, Questions

Lots of tea-leaf reading following the sudden departure of Stratton Sclavos as president, chairman and CEO of VeriSign. His responsibilities were split between two board members: William J. Roper, president and CEO, and Edward Mueller, chairman. VeriSign insists the departure has nothing to do with stock option issues but did not give any reason for the change. Release.

Sclavos invested heavily in new businesses for VeriSign but it didn’t always pay off. The Mercury News picked up this comment from Stifel Nicklaus analyst Todd Weller: ” “VeriSign’s former CEO was viewed as being a visionary, and we believe that Mr. Sclavos deserves a lot of credit for taking VeriSign where it is today. At the same time, we believe there are a fair amount of investors that question whether many of the visionary moves resulted in material growth.” Acquisitions varied considerably. The content-related plays included Jamba/Jamster (which wound up in a JV with News Corp.), mQube, Moreover, Weblogs.com.

The denial that stock option backdating played a role hasn’t stopped speculation. VeriSign has yet to release its long-promised review, which doesn’t help.

Comments have been disabled for this post