Running out the clock on a Friday afternoon

When the CFO steps down after less than a year on the job, that’s never a good sign. When the company waits until after the SEC closes at 5:30 pm on a Friday night to disclose that news, that’s even worse. But that’s exactly what Flagstar Financial did.

It’s not clear what time this press release announcing the speedy departure of Craig Gifford went out on Friday afternoon. But the SEC filing timestamp on the 8-K announcing the change is 17:44:03 (yes, the SEC does tenths of a second, at least for now). As a result, that filing was not available until 6 am ET this morning, when EDGAR woke up from its weekend-long nap and started back up.

In the press release, Flagstar said that Gifford decided to “step down to reengage in personal endeavors outside of the banking industry” and that COO Lee Smith would take over as CFO.

Last April, when the company announced the appointment of Gifford, it said he would be paid $700K a year, get a $700K annual bonus and receive 3 million shares of common stock. So the idea of giving that up to engage in personal endeavors rings a bit hollow, at least to my ears.

Longtime readers of footnoted know that I spend a lot of time looking at filings made late on a Friday — after markets close at 4 pm ET. But there’s also the Monday morning dump for those filings made even later on a Friday afternoon. This is one of those.

For regular readers of footnoted, we will be making some changes early in the new year. Stay tuned and be sure to sign up for our regular email updates if you aren’t already. Happy holidays!