“The stock is up a bit on the fact that nobody liked Carly’s leadership all that much,” said Robert Cihra, an analyst with Fulcrum Global Partners. “The Street had lost all faith in her and the market’s hope is that anyone will be better.”
Fiorina, the only female CEO at a company in the Dow Jones industrial average, had been with HP since 1999. But the company’s controversial deal to buy Compaq in the spring of 2002 — after a bruising proxy fight led by one of the Hewlett family heirs — has not produced the shareholder returns or profits she had promised.
Apparently in a conference call, the board said she was not forced out and would be paid a $21 million dollar severance pay.