Dial Back: XM Radio's Controversial CEO Exits In August

Hugh Panero, the controversial CEO of XM Satellite Radio, will leave the company in August. The news, delivered in anticipation of its second-quarter earnings announcement on Thursday, moves up Panero's departure date by at least a few months.

The executive's exit may be a step toward drawing up a clean management slate for XM, as it is scrutinized by regulators prior to a proposed merger with Sirius Satellite Radio.

Nate Davis, now XM's president and COO, will serve as its interim CEO until Mel Karmazin, the CEO of Sirius, takes over the helm of both companies. Under the terms of the proposed merger, XM chairman Gary Parsons will become the chairman of the combined entity. However, the merger is far from a sure thing, and XM did not present an alternative plan for appointing new management if regulators from the FCC and FTC don't allow the merger to proceed.

While widely hailed as a pioneer of satellite radio, Panero also ran afoul of XM investors and the Securities and Exchange Commission for certain allegedly illegal stock transactions in 2005. A group of XM investors filed suit against Panero and four other XM executives in May 2006 over the sale of $79 million of stock the year before.

Panero and the other executives are accused of issuing false forecasts of overall subscriptions and the average cost of new subscriber acquisition to inflate stock prices in the six-month period before they sold their stock.

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