14 DAY TRIAL // Forbes contributor Chuck Jones is giving the world a piece of his mind regarding Apple’s scheduled February 28 shareholder meeting, including an interesting tidbit that the company’s Chief Financial Officer, Peter Oppenheimer, could be announcing his resignation today.
In a piece titled “Don't Be Surprised If Apple's CFO Announces His Retirement At The Shareholder Meeting,” Jones (who owns Apple shares), makes a good case for the possible turn of events he foresees.
Oppenheimer has been with Apple for almost two decades, having joined the Cupertino computer giant in 1996 and becoming its CFO in June of 2004, some ten years ago.
At 51 years old, he has more than done his job answering to Steve Jobs and, following the death of the visionary genius, to Tim Cook, Apple’s current CEO.
“Fiscal 2005 was Oppenheimer’s first full year in the job and the company generated $13.9 billion [€10.13Bn] in revenue and $1.65 billion [€1.2Bn] in operating income,” writes Jones.
“In fiscal 2013 these had increased to $171 billion [€146.90Bn] (up 12.3x) and $49 billion [€35.75Bn] (up 29.7x), respectively. Overall he has done a very good job growing the company and given the time commitments after ten years it would not surprise me to see him leave sometime this year and possibly at the shareholder meeting,” says the Forbes contributor.
In the past few fiscal quarters, Apple has been dropping clues that the company is “laying the groundwork for a transition,” according to Jones.
One major hint that Apple is doing just that is the increased involvement of Luca Maestri, Apple’s corporate controller, in tasks that were usually assigned only to Oppenheimer and his minion, Gary Wipfler, Apple’s treasurer.
“Starting with the October 2013 call Luca Maestri, Apple’s Corporate Controller, has been on the calls and for the January 2014 conference call he handled questions about operating expenses and margins,” Jones writes.
Coming from Xerox, where he served as CFO for a few years, Maestri joined Apple in February 2013. His hiring may or may not be coincidental with Apple’s aggressive stock buyback program, but it’s certainly worth being speculated.
Over the past few years, the Cupertino giant has lost a number of key executives that some people say are irreplaceable. The company also went through a major executive shakeup in October of 2012, just one year after co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs passed away following a decade-long battle with pancreatic cancer.
It remains to be seen whether or not Oppenheimer is really leaving Apple today, or later this year, but his departure will undoubtedly deal a small blow to the organization’s equilibrium.