Gateway Appoints Deloitte as Auditor
Gateway Inc., which is overhauling its personal computer business after three years of losses, named Deloitte & Touche as its independent auditor, according to a regulatory filing.
Gateway announced in March that it was seeking a new accounting firm after PricewaterhouseCoopers said it wouldn’t seek reappointment. Poway, Calif.-based Gateway had said there were no disagreements with the firm.
PricewaterhouseCoopers was Gateway’s auditor in 2000 when accounting irregularities occurred at the company. That year’s results were restated in 2001 to lower sales and profit and to correct how Gateway had booked investment losses, sales and bad loans.
Gateway has said it will need approval at its annual shareholder meeting May 20 to name a new accounting firm.
Gateway also said founder and Chairman Ted Waitt took a 9% pay cut in 2003, despite a 46% increase in the company’s stock price that year.
Waitt is entitled to $250,000 a year as chairman of the PC and consumer electronics maker, but he declined that salary and opted for a nominal amount instead, the company said in its annual proxy filed Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission. He received a salary of $2,535 in 2003, and the company paid $11,874 in 2003 to charter aircraft for his personal use.
In 2002, Waitt’s total compensation was $15,790, consisting of $2,496 in salary and payments of $13,294 by Gateway to lease aircraft for his personal use, the filing said.
Waitt owns about 30% of Gateway’s outstanding shares, valued at about $682 million based on Monday’s closing price of $6.41, up 5 cents on the New York Stock Exchange.
Waitt, who returned to the company from retirement in January 2001, gave up the posts of president and chief executive in March after Gateway bought rival EMachines to gain a stronger foothold in the low end of the PC market.
Gateway’s net loss in 2003 widened by 70% to $526 million, or $1.62 a share, from $309 million, or 95 cents, in 2002. Revenue declined 18% to $3.4 billion.
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Bloomberg News and Reuters were used in compiling this report.
