PEOPLE : Investment Banker Joins L.A. Gear

L.A. Gear has named Kevin J. Ventrudo, a 31-year-old investment banker, to succeed a chief financial officer who walked out in December after the company moved to cut his seven-figure salary.

L.A. Gear, the nation’s No. 3 sneaker manufacturer, said it wants to tap Ventrudo’s expertise in arranging financing for growing firms. Ventrudo was a vice president in the Los Angeles investment banking division of Merrill Lynch Capital Markets.

As chief financial officer, he replaces Elliott J. Horowitz, whose pay for 1989 will total about $5 million under a contract that tied much of his compensation to the company’s pretax earnings. Horowitz, who was with L.A. Gear for five years, quit when the booming firm offered him a contract that would have substantially reduced his pay by changing the compensation formula.

Gil N. Schwartzberg, chief administrative officer of the Marina del Rey company, said that Ventrudo’s annual pay would be in the range of $200,000 to $400,000 and that he also would be eligible for stock options. Unlike Horowitz, Ventrudo will not hold the additional title of executive vice president. Instead, he will report to Schwartzberg, one of L.A. Gear’s two remaining executive vice presidents beneath Robert Y. Greenberg, the company’s chairman and president.

One of Ventrudo’s likely missions is to calm concerns among some investors that L.A. Gear is on the verge of stumbling after growing in six years from a small shoelace company to a business with annual revenue of $617 million. The company’s stock, the biggest gainer on the New York Stock Exchange last year, has slid since hovering in the mid-$40s in November.

In trading Wednesday, L.A. Gear’s shares fell 75 cents to close at $24.125.

At Merrill Lynch, Ventrudo was involved in managing a secondary offering of L.A. Gear stock. The Manhattan Beach resident holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Yale University and an MBA from Stanford University.