Cramer Says IBM’s Palmisano Needs To Go

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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ON CNBC’s MAD MONEY, Cramer went over his SELL BLOCK where he reviews stocks that are usually supposed to be sold.

He is singling out one name.  IBM’s (IBM) Palmisano is one CEO that would take his stock up if he would just resign.  Cramer is replacing Palmisano on his 5 CEO’s that need to go, and putting him there instead of Andrea Junjg of Avon (AVP).  On March 1, 2002 when he took over IBM was north of $102 and despite the stock coming up 25% off lows the stock is still under after a 40% gain in S&P 500 after dividends.  He thinks the CEO is overpaid.  Cramer said that Google (GOOG) Apps at $49 is not as good as Microsoft’s or IBM’s but it is cheap enough and getting some corporate accounts.  Cramer thinks that IBM is a SELL while its current CEO is at the helm.  Infosys (INFY) has gained more than 200% during the same time.  IBM fell 0.5% on this after-hours.

While I have my own list of 10 CEO’s That Need To Go (4 have now fallen since December when I posted it), this one is not as bad.  We haven’t gone out and attacked CEO’s that merely have not led the shareholders to gains or that we feel are just overpaid or have only underperformed.  We go out after the ones that have made horrific errors or that have been so inept that the company cannot win with them.  Yes IBM holders probably wish they were up more, but he hasn’t murdered the company.  It may be true that if Palmisano stepped down that the shares would jump, but he hasn’t led the company into the toilet bowl as bad as Cramer is calling it.

Jon C. Ogg
February 22, 2007

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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