Another VeriSign exec quits

VeriSign Inc. said Thursday that its chief financial officer had resigned and that the company had recorded $160 million in additional compensation expenses because of mishandled stock option grants.

Mountain View, Calif.-based VeriSign, which manages the “.com” and “.net” domain name registry, said in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission that an internal review had found problems with 8,164 stock option grants made on 41 dates from 1998 to 2006.

VeriSign blamed the errors on sloppy record keeping and an option grant process “characterized by a high degree of informality and relatively little oversight.”

VeriSign revealed the findings in filing its delayed financial report for 2006 and by restating results for 2002 to 2005, recording an additional $160.3 million in compensation expenses, after taxes, for the botched grants.

In the filings, the company also revealed that Chief Financial Officer Dana Evan resigned Tuesday. The departure comes after the abrupt resignation in late May of VeriSign Chief Executive Stratton Sclavos.

VeriSign stock rose 52 cents to $32.99 in regular trading but fell 27 cents after hours.