Bausch&Lomb Inc. Fixes Error in Ceo Bio
Shares of Bausch & Lomb Inc. fell 3 percent Friday after an Internet columnist revealed that a company news release falsely claimed chief executive Ronald Zarrella graduated from business school. In announcing Zarrella's appointment as CEO last November, Bausch & Lomb said he graduated from New York University's Stern School of Business in 1978.
Zarrella did attend the MBA program from 1972 to 1976 but left without graduating, the company acknowledged Friday. Shares dropped almost 7 percent in early trading after the error was disclosed by Herb Greenberg, a columnist at TheStreet.com. The company posted a corrected biography on its Web site. By the close, Bausch & Lomb shares were down $1.01 to $31.48 in trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
"I'm embarrassed that this incorrect information has appeared in some of our published materials on my background," Zarrella said in statement. "Clearly it's my obligation to proofread such things carefully and ensure their accuracy." The company declined to say whether the error would be investigated further. "If there's anything further to report, clearly we'll put something out," said spokeswoman Margaret Graham. She said the company did not know how the error occurred.
Two weeks ago, Veritas Software Corp. forced its chief financial officer to resign after learning he lied about his education. After getting an e-mail tip, the Mountain View, California-based company discovered that Kenneth Lonchar, its CFO since 1997, had fabricated some of his academic credentials, including a Stanford University MBA that he never received.
Bausch & Lomb, which came out with the first soft contact lens 26 years ago, lost ground in that market after Johnson & Johnson's introduction of frequent-replacement lenses in the mid-1990s. Under Zarrella, the company has eliminated 1,150 jobs and shut down plants in the U.S., Spain and South Korea involved in making rigid gas permeable, or hard, contact lenses as it switches resources into making planned-replacement and disposable lenses.
(Source: APBiscom)
