Influential hedge fund manager David Einhorn has called for Microsoft Corp Chief Executive Steve Ballmer to step down, saying the world’s largest software company’s leader is stuck in the past.
“His continued presence is the biggest overhang on Microsoft’s stock,” Einhorn said in reference to Ballmer.
The comments by outspoken Einhorn, who made his name warning about Lehman Brothers’ financial health before the investment bank’s collapse, are the most pointed yet from a high-profile investor against Microsoft’s leadership.
Microsoft shares, which have been static for over a decade, gained 0.87 percent in after-hours trading after Einhorn’s comments, the most of any Dow Jones industrial average component.
The software giant, which was the largest U.S. company by market value in the late 1990s, has since been overtaken by Apple Inc and IBM in market value, and is no longer seen as a dominating force in technology after a failure to capitalize on new Internet and mobile computing markets.
The stock is down 6 percent in the last two weeks alone after Microsoft agreed to pay $8.5 billion for Internet phone service Skype, a move which mystified many investors.
Speaking at the annual Ira Sohn Investment Research Conference in New York Wednesday, Einhorn said it was time for Ballmer — who succeeded co-founder Bill Gates in 2000 — to step aside and “give someone else a chance.”
Einhorn’s comments echo what some investors have said for some years in private.
A Microsoft spokesman declined comment on Einhorn’s remarks.