The Nation's Worst CEOs

Ellison would do much better by his shareholders, Anderson says, if he would drive an initiative to build communications more effectively into the world of database applications. The chief executive, who is a terrific competitive sailor and pilot, understood the power of the Internet early and rode the online boom brilliantly in the late 1990s. But since then, he has failed to grasp a foothold for his company in a broader communications play that will carry it into the next decade.

With that failure, he has doomed his company to single-digit revenue growth and a stagnant stock price. After all, database software is a business that will never go away and gets deeply embedded in clients' way of doing business. Once you have customers, "you pretty much need to shoot both their dogs before they'll leave you," is Anderson's colorful phrase.

But Wall Street demands more than stability. With moderating sales, Ellison has to do more than try to ham-handedly smother the competition and cut costs -- especially with a premium multiple of six times sales and 24 times next year's estimated earnings.

Assorted Others

Some utilities deserve special mention for incredibly poor strategic decision-making in their executive suites. Among the worst are AES (AES), Calpine (CPN) and Teco Energy (TE).

Portfolio manager John LaForge, of FA Asset Management, told me that two chief executives he would put in the penalty box are Carol A. Ammon of Endo Pharmaceuticals (ENDP) and Austin Shanfelter of MasTec (MTZ). Ammon deserves opprobrium, he said, because she made a series of poor decisions in dealing with the Food and Drug Administration on her company's generic alternative to the addictive painkiller OxyContin. "She pandered to the FDA and let it push her around on doing extra trials when she should have held her ground," he said. Her calls cost the company valuable time to market, allowing archrival Teva Pharmaceutical (TEVA) to outmaneuver and beat them.

LaForge nominates MasTec's Shanfelter for the stonewalling his company did in not releasing its 10-K annual report to the Securities and Exchange Commission last year and all this spring. MasTec's communication has been "horrific," he said. Company officials told investors repeatedly that they would file their report within two weeks and then neither filed nor advised investors that the reports were further delayed.

Nominations?

Would you like to nominate a chief executive as the worst of the 2000s so far? Email me at [e-mail] and put the word "CEO" in the subject line. I'll comment on the best suggestions in my next letters column.

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Please note that due to factors including low market capitalization and/or insufficient public float, we consider MasTec to be a small-cap stock. You should be aware that such stocks are subject to more risk than stocks of larger companies, including greater volatility, lower liquidity and less publicly available information, and that postings such as this one can have an effect on their stock prices.

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