Management at casino operator Park Place Entertainment Corp.said CFO Scott LaPorta will leave the company on January 31. LaPorta has been finance chief since the company’s inception in 1998, when Hilton Hotels Corp. spun off its gaming assets to form a separate company. The company has started a search for a new CFO.
LaPorta is departing to pursue a new business opportunity in San Francisco, said executives of Las Vegas-based Park Place. The gaming specialist also owns Paris Las Vegas, Bally’s, and Caesars Palace.
According to Reuters, some analysts believe LaPorta is leaving for personal reasons. Park Place executives note that LaPorta had been commuting to Vegas from San Francisco weekly since he got married in June. Still, his departure “could be viewed negatively by investors until an acceptable succession plan is articulated by the company,” Credit Suisse First Boston analyst Brian Egger wrote in a research note.
Sure enough, the price of Park Place shares was down 49 cents, or about 4 percent, at the close of trading on Tuesday. Park Place equity ended the day at $7.75 per share.
Executives at Cary, North Carolina-based Dialog Corp., a Thomson Group subsidiary, announced that Christine Naylor was appointed CFO of the online-information specialist. Naylor currently holds the title of senior financial officer, managing all of the company’s financial activities worldwide.
Before joining Dialog, Naylor was a vice president at West Group, a provider of legal, regulatory, and business information. While at that company, which is also owned by Thomson, Naylor spearheaded the re-engineering of the company’s financial management, customer ordering, and fulfillment systems. She also initiated a comprehensive product review process.
Before West Group, Naylor held various financial and management positions with global healthcare company Bausch & Lomb, including CFO at Dahlberg, Inc., a Bausch & Lomb company. Naylor is a graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technology and holds a M.B.A. from the University of Rochester, Simon School.
Management at telecom company Flag Telecom Holdings Ltd. said Michel Cayouette will take over as CFO in January. Cayouette will replace acting CFO Peter O’Donoghue.
Most recently, Cayouette served as chief financial officer at TIW Asia NV, a global communications investment fund. Before that, he was finance chief of Teleglobe Communications Corp. Flat Telecom, which is based in Bermuda, is currently building a global undersea communications network.
An article from
Leaving Las Vegas: Park Place CFO Pulls Up Stakes
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