After jettisoning Presstek Inc. jobs in the second half of 2011, CEO Jeff Jacobson jumped ship to Xerox Corp., more than four years after he relocated Presstek”™s headquarters from Hudson, N.H., to Greenwich.
Presstek also announced the departures of its CFO and its head of European operations, with both leaving to join other companies. Like Jacobson, CFO Jeffery Cook and Europe President Guy Sasson previously worked for Kodak Polychrome Graphics, which has its main office in Norwalk. KPG is a joint venture between Sun Chemical and Eastman Kodak Co., with Kodak reeling after filing last month for bankruptcy protection.
Under Jacobson, Presstek shares have dropped from more than $8 a share in 2007 to below 60 cents as of early February.
In a November conference call with investment analysts, Jacobson declined to detail how many jobs he has cut and blamed the company”™s woes on the overall economy while giving no hint of plans to take a job elsewhere.
“Obviously when its $11 million (in restructuring costs) it”™s a fairly significant number and unfortunately its one of those things that we felt we had to do at this time,” Jacobson said. “We obviously cut extremely deeply, it obviously is an extremely painful cut.”
Presstek handed Jacobson”™s CEO and chairman duties to Stanley Freimuth, 65, a Fujifilm veteran who has been a company director the past few years; and named as CFO Arnon Dror, who worked for Kodak”™s graphic communications group that Jacobson once led before taking the Presstek job in 2007.
Presstek did not immediately respond to an interview request for Freimuth or another executive to detail future plans. Jacobson does not officially join Xerox until Feb. 20; he will lead Xerox”™s global graphic communications business.
The offset printing press market is dominated by Kodak, Heidelberg, Xerox and a few other companies with smaller competitors vying for their own market share based on alternative technologies ”“ in the case of Presstek chemistry-free plates.
In the first three quarters of its fiscal year under Jacobson, Presstek lost $8.6 million with sales down 8 percent to $90 million. In 2007, the year Jacobson became CEO, sales totaled $247 million; the company generated one profitable year under his tenure, in 2009 when it made $500,000.
Including the estimated value of options scheduled to vest in future years, Jacobson”™s compensation totaled $1.7 million in the company”™s 2010 fiscal year.
In its own fourth quarter, Norwalk-based Xerox more than doubled its profits to $375 million, despite sales remaining flat from a year ago at just under $6 billion. Xerox also more than doubled profits on the year to $1.3 billion, as sales rose 5 percent to $22.6 billion in CEO Ursula Burns”™ second full year leading the company.
Xerox closed the year with 139,650 workers, up 3,100 from a year ago, which it attributed to acquisitions.
Xerox also announced a significant change in its leadership, naming Carol Zierhoffer as chief information officer, replacing John McDermott who is now head of strategy and business process architecture for Xerox”™s technology business. Zierhoffer previously worked for the White Plains, N.Y.-based conglomerate ITT Corp.; and before that for Northrop Grumman Corp., which has a large facility in Norwalk.