Timothy Donahue, executive chairman of the Sprint Nextel Corp, the third-largest US wireless carrier, said on Tuesday that he would retire at the end of the year, in the latest shake-up at a company that has lost ground to its larger rivals Cingular and Verizon Wireless.
The announcement of his departure came earlier than expected. In his employment agreement, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission in March last year, Donahue said he would remain as chairman through 2008. He was chief executive of the Nextel Corp before it merged with Sprint more than a year ago.
In a statement on Tuesday from the company, Donahue, 57, said only that he looked forward to spending more time with his family and friends.
Sprint Nextel's board did not immediately name a successor.
The announcement came less than two months after Len Lauer, the chief operating officer, left Sprint Nextel. Lauer, many analysts said, was a victim of the company's poor performance in recent quarters.
Sprint Nextel added 210,000 subscribers in the second quarter, far below estimates by analysts, who were also disappointed with the company's revenue and profit growth. Sprint Nextel executives said they had faced difficulties in merging the operations of their companies, which together have 51.7 million wireless customers.
The company's results have been hurt, analysts said, by a lack of attractive handsets, an uninspiring branding campaign and too many subscribers with weak credit, which has increased turnover.
Unlike Cingular and AT&T Wireless, which merged two years ago, Sprint and Nextel have networks that operate on different wireless technologies, increasing the hurdles in merging operations.
While many companies that merge face difficulties integrating their businesses, analysts said Sprint Nextel's executives had several additional distractions that gave rivals a chance to gain ground.
In the last year, Sprint Nextel has spun off its local phone group, purchased several affiliates, formed a partnership with major cable companies and announced that it would work with Intel, Samsung and others to build a next-generation wireless broadband network.
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
South Korea has adjusted its electronic arrival card system to no longer list Taiwan as a part of China, a move that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said would help facilitate exchanges between the two sides. South Korea previously listed “Taiwan” as “Taiwan (China)” in the drop-down menus of its online arrival card system, where people had to fill out where they came from and their next destination. The ministry had requested South Korea make a revision and said it would change South Korea’s name on Taiwan’s online immigration system from “Republic of Korea” to “Korea (South),” should the issue not be
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
RSS