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Einhorn: Ballmer's Bad For Microsoft's Business

  • Reuters, Thursday, May 26, 2011 11:33 AM
Steve Ballmer's got to go. That's according to respected hedge fund manager and Microsoft investor David Einhorn, who called for Ballmer's ouster. "His continued presence is the biggest overhang on Microsoft's stock," Einhorn said of Ballmer at a conference this week, Reuters reports. Since Ballmer took the company's reins in 2000, Microsoft's stock has remained stagnant, while it has failed to innovate in increasingly key areas like mobile software, hardware and tablets.

Einhorn's Greenlight Capital hedge fund has been a recent buyer of Microsoft stock, "which," as Reuters points out, "at under 10 times expected earnings is regarded by many as undervalued." Greenlight reportedly holds about 9 million shares in Microsoft, or 0.11 percent of the company's outstanding shares, according to Thomson Reuters data. On Tuesday, Reuters notes, Microsoft was overtaken by IBM in market value for the first time in 15 years, "chiefly because of its static shares."

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