Nautilus Rewriting CFO Rice's Resume

Editor's Note: Herb Greenberg's column runs exclusively on RealMoney.com; this is a special free look at his column. For a free trial subscription to RealMoney.com, click here. This article was published May 23 on RealMoney.

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Thursday thwack:

Needling Nautilus: Never did hear back from Bowflex maker Nautilus (NLS Quote), though somebody from the company called an editor asking for a copy of Tuesday's column about how CFO Rod Rice isn't quite what the company's proxy claims he is. The proxy's bio said Rice was a certified public accountant and that in college he majored in both accounting and economics.

However, as I pointed out at the time, he is no longer certified or licensed in Washington, and he majored only in accounting -- not economics.

As I noted, after getting our query by phone, the company apparently tried to rectify the situation by changing Rice's bio on its Web site to say that he "worked as a certified public accountant" at Deloitte & Touche, rather than that he is a CPA. The company also changed Rice's college background to say that he majored in accounting and minored in economics.

However, as I also noted, he received his CPA license after he left Deloitte, and Portland State University had no record of him ever having minored in economics.

Enter the latest version of his bio, updated Wednesday: Now Nautilus is saying that Rice merely worked as an accountant with Deloitte. It also removed the line about Rice's minor in economics. The only mention of him ever being a CPA was that "he received his CPA certificate from the State of Washington." True, though as this original column pointed out, he is no longer certified.

Merger mania: What's worse than one tech company buying another tech company? A tech company buying a troubled tech company. What's worse than that? A troubled tech company buying another troubled tech company. Such appears to be the case with Remec(REMC Quote), which Sunday announced that it's buying RF amplifier maker Spectrian(SPCT Quote).

No stranger to this column, Spectrian -- whose revenues are roughly half of where they were at their peak -- is dependent on the wireless industry. So is Remec, whose business is so bad that the company has reported a series of layoffs and losses, forcing analysts to keep slicing estimates.

Asked on the company's conference call why Remec would acquire a company whose business has been so weak, Remec CEO Ron Ragland gave a hemming and hawing "I would say that it's not -- it hasn't been a knee-jerk" response. Spectrian CEO Tom Waechter then added that revenue for his company has actually risen over the past two quarters.

Then why did Remec pay a discount to Spectrian's price as recently as late January?

Ragland also touted how the merger "with modest growth" will help the company's revenue get to $500 million. Modest growth? This year, best case, based on current revenue, is around $350 million. In a market like this, it would seem, $500 million is still little more than a dream.

This bonus for trivia buffs: I knew Remec CFO David Morash's name rang a bell. He was CFO of Safeskin, which was a regular in my column before it blew up.

Friday night fights: Can't wait to tangle with Cramer and Kass on Kudlow & Cramer Friday night on CNBC.