CA Fires Nine Employees In Wake Of Accounting Probe

Computer Associates International on Monday said it has fired nine employees in its legal and finance departments because of issues raised during an independent investigation into the company's accounting practices by its board's audit committee.

Despite the latest turn of events, CA solution providers say they're not seeing a sales impact from the board's investigation or a separate federal probe. The ongoing investigations have raised speculation about the future of CA Chairman and CEO Sanjay Kumar.

The federal investigation and the possible impact on Kumar "doesn't really come up much at all" in the sales trenches, said Dave Hiechel, president and CEO of Eagle Software, a storage solution provider in Salina, Kan. "If [Kumar] goes, I am sure it will be a topic of conversation," he said. "But everybody perceives CA to be so large that nothing is really going to upset the ship. Even if Sanjay goes, everyone feels CA will survive."

In a statement, CA said its audit committee, headed by former Securities and Exchange Commission Chief Accountant Walter Schuetze, is nearing the completion of its investigation and assessment of whether a restatement of prior-period financial statements is required under GAAP and, if so, what the extent of a restatement would be. CA shares were down 2 percent to $25.92 in midday trading.

"As the audit committee wraps up its work and takes these remedial actions, the management team has continued to focus on the business at hand, as we have in the past months," Kumar said in a statement. "We have kicked off our new fiscal year, rolled out our fiscal-year objectives and remain focused on keeping our customers at the center of all that we are doing."