January 26, 2011—This morning, Xerox (XRX) reported an earnings decline thanks to restructuring, warned of worse-than-expected results for the coming year, and disclosed the departure of Lawrence Zimmerman, its chief financial officer of eight years. Together, the news has sent ...

January 18, 2011—There's long been an air of mystery surrounding the top echelon at Goldman Sachs (GS) -- its so-called "partners," a hold-over from the days before the company was publicly traded -- including just who is a member at any given time. Now, ...

January 10, 2011—Most people think of Williams-Sonoma (WSM) as a purveyor of gizmos and furnishings for the kitchen and home. Here at footnoted, we also see it as a busy part-time broker of executive aircraft. This time, they're planning to buy the former boss's ...

December 8, 2010—Yesterday, we predicted that Don Blankenship wouldn't suffer too badly in the wake of his abrupt decision to retire as chairman and chief executive of Massey Energy (MEE), the beleaguered coal producer. Late in the day, we were ...

November 9, 2010—We thought we had a pretty good understanding of the basic rules of SEC filings, having done this for close to a decade now. But every now and then, we come across a disclosure that just makes us scratch our heads. Take, ...

October 22, 2010—News of the $1 million settlement Office Depot (ODP) has entered into with the Securities and Exchange Commission came with something of a wave of nostalgia for us here at the footnoted global campus. The feds, of course, accused ...

October 15, 2010—It's been busy over at Chesapeake Energy (CHK), the winner last year of our annual worst footnote of the year contest: Teaming up with the Chinese, losing a chief financial officer (but gaining a joint-venture president), and even winning the ...

October 7, 2010—Let's set the stage: You're the chief executive of a struggling student-loan company that hasn't turned a profit for more than two years. Regulators raised questions about how lenders in your industry operated. The financial crisis put a dent in the whole ...

July 23, 2010—Now that Dell (company and founder alike) has settled with the Securities and Exchange Commission, no doubt investors and management will forge ahead. But we want to take one moment to look back -- not to the sordid accounting gimmicks and misleading ...

June 24, 2010—There's been a lot of talk in Washington and elsewhere lately about investor protections, although, understandably, it has mostly been secondary to proposals intended to safeguard the economy and the markets as a whole. Two of the investor-protection proposals most commonly raised would give ordinary ...