CA Inc. (Nasdaq: CA) president and COO Michael Christenson is on vacation in Israel with his family. Nevertheless he took time out to tell "Globes" that he is one of the candidates to replace CEO John Swainson who steps down at the end of the year.
Will you the next CEO? He said, I'm working on it. I've met with an appointments committee several times but there are also other candidates both inside and outside of the company."
Swainson's predecessor as CA's CEO Sanjay Kumar was sentenced to 12 years in prison for financial irregularities and the resignation of Swainson does not convey an atmosphere of business as usual. However Christenson insists nothing is wrong at CA. He said, "There is no hidden motive behind his decision to resign. Five years is a long time to head a public company and he simply wants to move onto something else."
Christenson declined to comment on reports that CA is about to acquire Israeli service delivery management firm Oblicore Inc. for $20 million. He said, "We have said in the past that we will spend about $300-400 million a year in acquiring new companies but we haven't reached that sum in 2009 because we have not found suitable companies."
He added, "There are opportunities for quick growth in the market in the computerized sector, automation and virtualization and through acquisitions we will get there faster. In addition, there are private companies in these sectors and they are more interesting to us than in the past. We will be more active in the coming period. Today's opportunities in the market are clearer to us.
Christenson continued that CA is tracking over 200 companies worldwide and Israel has a notable number of representatives in the companies with which CA is already cooperating or are in the process of being acquired.
CA has already bought nine Israeli companies with the two most recent acquisitions being security applications companies Eurekify and IDFocus LLC.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on November 23, 2009
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