NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- Sprint Nextel tapped Robert H. Brust
to serve as its chief financial officer in a move to fill out its management
team.
Brust, 64 years old, who last year retired as chief financial officer of Eastman
Kodak, jumps onboard as the No. 3 U.S. wireless carrier struggles to keep its
customers and work through its disastrous merger with Nextel. Sprint reports its
first-quarter results on May 12.
"I am naturally drawn to challenges, but I view this role within Sprint as
a true opportunity," Brust said in a statement. He has also served as
financial chief of Unisys and as a finance executive at General Electric.
William Arendt, 50, who was serving as interim chief financial officer, will go
back to his role of controller.
Shortly after Chairman and Chief Executive Dan Hesse took over the Reston, Va.,
company in December, he cleaned house. Three top executives, including Chief
Financial Officer Paul Saleh, stepped down. Their departures also came after
reporting startlingly weak subscriber figures for the fourth quarter and a
gloomy forecast for the year. "This the second major management
announcement," said Walter Piecyk, an analyst at Pali Research. "He
probably needs to make some additional ones to put together a team that can turn
Sprint around."
In late March, Sprint named Steven Elfman to a newly created position of
president of network operations and wholesale.
The company followed it up a month later by reporting full fourth-quarter
results that included a loss of $29.5 billion on the write-down of Nextel assets
- one of the largest quarterly losses in U.S. corporate history.
The executives weren't the only ones to leave. A quartet of Sprint directors
have said they plan to leave, signaling a new perspective and giving Hesse
flexibility to make more changes. The company plans to hold its annual
shareholder meeting on May 13.
Concerns continue to plague Sprint. Standard & Poor's cut its credit rating
to BB from BBB-, reducing it to junk-bond status. It's emblematic of the
problems that Hesse and Brust will have to deal with.
Sprint recently traded at $7.97, down 2 cents, or 0.3%, on volume of 20.2
million shares. Average daily volume is 38 million shares.
-By Roger Cheng, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-2020; roger.cheng@dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
Posted to the site on 1st May 2008
Posted to: www.cellular-news.com/story/30912.php