Company News: Starbucks chooses new CFO
Starbucks Corp. said Tuesday it has hired Peter Bocian of NCR Corp. to replace Michael Casey, the company’s longtime chief financial officer.
Casey, who also serves as an executive vice president and chief administrative officer, is moving to a senior advisory position with the world’s largest specialty coffee retailer.
Casey announced the transition last year. He has been Starbucks’ CFO for 12 years.
Bocian will join Starbucks next month, and will officially succeed Casey in October, at the start of the company’s 2008 fiscal year. He will report to President and Chief Executive Jim Donald, the Seattle-based company said in a statement.
According to regulatory filings, Bocian’s annual salary will be $575,000. He also will get a $500,000 signing bonus and a guaranteed minimum bonus of $287,500 for the 2007 fiscal year. Among Bocian’s other benefits will be a one-time grant of options for 200,000 shares of Starbucks stock, and a fiscal 2008 grant of stock options worth $1 million.
Starbucks said Bocian has been a senior vice president and CFO at Dayton, Ohio-based NCR, a computer-services provider, since 2004.
“ Northwest Airlines will open a reservations call center in Sioux City, Iowa, and close one in Baltimore because it’s having trouble finding workers there, the carrier said Tuesday.
The Iowa center is scheduled to open late this year and will employ up to 300 reservations sales agents and managers, the airline said. It will close its Baltimore reservation center on March 31. The 183 workers there will have the option to transfer to other reservations centers. Northwest Corp. also runs reservation centers in Chisholm, Minn.; Minneapolis; Seattle; and Tampa, Fla.
Reservations agents and other Northwest workers have taken pay cuts as the airline reorganizes under bankruptcy protection. Their union blamed pay cuts for the job losses in Baltimore.
“The European Commission confirmed Tuesday it had opened an antitrust probe into Apple’s iTunes and the way it sells music online in coordination with major music companies.
The commission said consumers were “restricted in their choice of where to buy music,” and what music is available and at what price due to the agreements iTunes has with the record labels, which EU regulators said could violate EU competition rules.
Apple has two months to answer questions issued in a letter sent to the company over the EU antitrust concerns, the commission said.