Hewlett-Packard names SAP's ex-CEO Leo Apotheker as chief

Hewlett-Packard appointed former SAP Chief Executive Officer Leo Apotheker as CEO and president, turning to an external candidate who resigned from his last job in February after sales and profit slumped.

The company named Ray Lane, managing partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, as nonexecutive chairman, according to a statement today. The men will succeed Mark Hurd, who held the CEO and chairman roles until his resignation on August 6. They will both start at Palo Alto, California-based HP on November 1.

Apotheker, 57, departed unexpectedly from SAP this year after sales and shares slumped and he struggled to combat a threat from Oracle Corp. At HP, he inherits a company that’s using takeovers to expand in areas including services, smartphones and networking gear. His background in software may help the company as it weaves applications into hardware.

“There’s a lot of work to be done,” Joel Achramowicz, an analyst at Blaylock Robert Van in Oakland, California. He has a “neutral” rating on HP’s shares and says the CEO decision won’t cause him to change that. “The company needs new leadership that can make aggressive, risky moves to inject new vitality into the enterprise.”

HP, the top maker of PCs and printers, has lost 9 per cent of its value since Hurd’s departure. The shares dropped an additional $1.34, or 3.2 per cent, to $40.73 in extended trading after the announcement. Earlier, the stock declined 46 cents to $42.07 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.

Final year
Apotheker’s last year at SAP was marred by a drop in sales, profit and share-price value. In that period, SAP slashed more than 3,000 jobs, its first major cuts since the company was created. He was criticised by shareholders as being ineffective at responding to Oracle, which used acquisitions to expand in applications, SAP’s area of expertise.

Apotheker presided over SAP’s first annual revenue decline since 2003 as customers, hurt by the recession, delayed software purchases. SAP shares, which reached an all-time high of ¤71.58 in March 2000 — when Hasso Plattner was in charge — lost more than half their value by the time Apotheker left.

Over his more than 20-year tenure, he handled more than a dozen acquisitions.