Motorola CFO 'involuntarily terminated'
Motorola Inc., the second-biggest U.S. seller of mobile phones, said it fired Chief Financial Officer Paul Liska last month for cause after less than a year on the job.
Hired in February 2008, Lisa was "involuntarily terminated," the Schaumburg-based company said Wednesday in a regulatory filing.
Liska's departure was disclosed Feb. 3, though no reason was given at the time.
Motorola, which awarded Liska $3.65 million in salary, bonuses, stock and options in 2008, is asking him to repay the $400,000 signing bonus he received last year.
Liska, whose last day was Feb. 19, couldn't be reached for comment. Motorola wouldn't provide his contact information.
Company spokeswoman Jennifer Erickson declined to comment on the reason Liska was fired.
"It is a matter between Mr. Liska and the company," she said.
Before joining the company, Liska was a partner at private- equity firms such as MidOcean Partners LLP and Ripplewood Holdings LLC.
He also served as chairman of U.S. Freightways and finance chief of Sears, Roebuck & Co. He began working at Motorola on March 1 of last year.
In a separate filing, Motorola revealed that its new co-chief executive was rewarded with a pay package valued at more than $100 million in 2008.
But almost all of that consists of stock awards that will be worthless absent a major recovery in Motorola's stock price.
Sanjay Jha's compensation is made up of huge incentives the company said it needed to offer to recruit an executive of his caliber to help lead a major restructuring effort.
It comes as thousands of Motorola employees have been laid off because of mounting losses.
Jha was lured to Motorola last year from Qualcomm Inc., where he served as chief operating officer. He was brought in to run Motorola's badly wounded cell phone business, which the company plans to spin off but has been delaying because of its huge losses.
Jha, who leads Motorola's mobile devices division, has a big job ahead of him: Motorola's cell phone business has eroded sharply as its hit Razr phone has fallen out of favor, the recession crimps consumer spending on new gadgets, and the company scrambles to cut costs to keep pace.
Motorola's cell phone revenue has dropped 70 percent in the past two years, and the company has announced 7,000 job cuts over the past six months. The company as a whole lost $4.16 billion last year, as sales slid 18 percent to $30.1 billion. Both Jha and the company's other co-CEO, Greg Brown, said in December they would forgo any 2008 bonus, given Motorola's overall poor performance.
The total value of Jha's 2008 pay package was $104.4 million, according to calculations Associated Press.