HP Announces New CEO & Board Chairman

Hewlett-Packard HPQ has named former SAP CEO Leo Apotheker as its CEO and President. Also, former Oracle executive Ray Lane will be the Board's Chairman. In a recent note, J.P. Morgan had previously said the new CEO at HP had to be both visionary and operator to facilitate the company's ongoing construction of a one-stop IT shop for enterprise solutions. JPM believes Leo Apotheker possesses visionary qualities, given his contributions to SAP'software applications business over the years. Tough it is not so certain on the operator part, though. J.P Morgan believe that the CEO and Chairman nods indicate that HP is serious about pursuing its enterprise growth mantra, which had been on full display at the analyst meeting on September 28. As stated previously, HP's business segment managers are of CEO-like caliber, which is why three internal executives continued to be viewed as potential CEO appointments over the past two months. Investors may be concerned Ann Livermore, Todd Bradley, or Dave Donatelli could be at risk of leaving given the new CEO is an external hire. Though JPM tends to disagree. HP closed Thursday at $42.07 and its trading down 3% in premarket