Shake-Up Expected at Home Theater Products : Management: Several senior officers are expected to depart soon in wake of accounting scandal.

Home Theater Products International Inc. is poised for a major management shake-up in the wake of a former auditor’s assertion that the company overstated its annual sales and net income by $9 million, an executive said Monday.

As many as four senior officers, including the chairman and the president, are expected to depart soon, said Irwin Zucker, HTP’s executive vice president.

Zucker said he has become de facto acting chief executive because Paul R. Safronchik, the company’s chairman and chief executive, hasn’t worked at the company’s Anaheim headquarters for the past two weeks. Safronchik has done some work from home, Zucker said.

Safronchik, who also is the company’s chief financial officer, has told executives he plans to resign as a result of the accounting scandal, and Jerome A. Adamo, the president, has announced he plans to retire, Zucker said.

“There are one or two others in executive management positions under consideration for termination as a result of this,” he said.

HTP, which makes and assembles audio and video electronics in cabinet systems, was jolted last month when its auditor, Jaak (Jack) Olesk of Beverly Hills, resigned and later withdrew his audit reports for the prior three years.

The withdrawal of the previous reports left the company without audited results, one of the requirements for the company’s stock to remain on the Nasdaq market system. Last week, HTP asked to be delisted.

Olesk cited “significant weaknesses” in internal controls and concerns about “management integrity” as reasons for resigning. When the company disputed those reasons, he provided details.

Olesk said he found that the company recorded as much as $9.3 million in nonexistent sales for its fiscal year, which ended June 30, and that a $4-million annual profit should be a $5-million loss. He said management acted “nonchalant” when he confronted top executives. Zucker said he wasn’t one of those executives.

“It’s a challenge to deal with,” Zucker said. “It causes you to focus on every aspect of the operation. We’ve lost key people, the president and the chairman. Of course, we have to constantly analyze cash flow. Customers and suppliers naturally are concerned. It takes a lot of hand holding. Fortunately, sales are holding up. This is traditionally the busiest month for us, and we’re very busy so far this month.”

HTP sells the majority of its systems under a license that allows it to use the Paramount Pictures name. Zucker said his company has talked with Paramount executives to keep the lines of communication open.

Zucker also is meeting with a shareholders’ group led by Brookstreet Securities Corp. in Irvine. The group represents shareholders who own 45% of the company’s stock, or two-thirds of all stock not owned by management.

“The group has been quite supportive of us,” Zucker said. “I have committed to them that I will meet every week with them, and we may meet more often. I have an open line of communication with the people at Brookstreet.”

HTP has hired Putnam, Hayes & Bartlett, a nationally recognized firm that specializes in forensic accounting, to review past records for any accounting irregularities.

Zucker said the job should be done by the end of the month, at which point the company plans to hire a national or large regional accounting firm to prepare audits for its fiscal years 1993 through 1995.

He said HTP probably won’t need a new audit for 1992 because the results are so old that neither the public nor regulators rely on them.