With readers on holiday, corporate disclosures released at the end of the year often go unnoticed. Here are 6 stories culled from announcements and filings from Christmas Eve to the New Year.
1. Daily Journal Corporation
The California-based legal publisher is also big shareholder in many US banks, thanks to the leadership of its chairman and Berkshire Hathaway number two Charlie Munger. On Monday it said that one of its quarterly earnings statements "should no longer be relied on."
The problem is an expected change in how some deferred revenue will be taxed. The company said it reached this decision on December 29 — Monday — after discussing it with its new auditor, BDO.
Daily Journal had removed its prior auditor, "Big Four" member EY, in June after a dispute over its internal controls. Daily Journal also said it had notified the NASDAQ on Tuesday that it won't be able to file a timely annual report, which violates the exchange's listing rules. The company also disclosed that it "it will not provide preliminary, unaudited results for fiscal 2014 until it has more certainty regarding BDO's position on the income tax accounting."
2. Yahoo
Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer disclosed that she had sold some 36,000 shares of Yahoo stock for an average price of $51.16, bringing in a total of $1.8 million. She also exercised 36,000 options to buy Yahoo stock at $18.87. The sales and acquisitoins were part of an executive trading plan she adopted in Novmber, 2013. Yahoo and Mayer made the official filing on Christmas Eve, while the sales and purchases were made on December 22.
3. Advanced Micro Devices
The microchip company Advanced Micro Devices said on Monday that it had settled a shareholder lawsuit over its stock grants to its new CEO Lisa Su in October. As part of the settlement, disclosed in a regulatory filing on Monday, AMD said it would rescind the about $4.7 million in stock awards it had granted Su. The company said in its filling, however, that it "intends to return Dr. Su's equity compensation to the level it should have been prior to the action to void and rescind the equity awards described above at or near the earliest practicable opportunity."
4. Jeb Bush
After announcing he was "actively exploring" a run for the presidency, former Florida governor Jeb Bush resigned from the boards of two companies where he served as a director: the timber company Rayonier and the healthcare company Tenet. Rayonier announced his resignation on Monday, while Tenet announced his departure on Christmas Eve.
5. Twitter
Twitter founder Ev Williams and his wife sold over $14 million worth of Twitter shares through various trusts and companies that own Twitter stock. The sales took place on the 22nd and 23rd but were disclosed on Christmas Eve.
6. Louis Dreyfus
The commodities trading firm Louis Dreyfus announced at the end of November that it had picked a new CEO: the former head of Canadian agriculture company Viterra, Mayo Schmidt. But on New Year's Eve the firm announced that Schmidt would not be coming on, "following a more detailed analysis of the terms and conditions of their planned employment relationship."