Storage firm Gadzoox names new CEO, restates earnings

Gadzoox Networks, a maker of networking equipment for high-end storage systems, has named a new chief executive in the wake of restated earnings and a 20 percent drop in its stock price today.

The company named Michael Parides president and chief executive today, the company said, replacing Bill Sickler, who has resigned.

Gadzoox was forced to restate earnings because it must change the method used to acquire a company called SmartSAN. An unnamed "affiliated shareholder" traded stock during a specific period, so Gadzoox must change the acquisition from a pooling-of-interest method to a purchase-accounting method, the company said.

Consequently, the company's loss for the quarter ended June 30 was 52 cents a share, not the previously stated 35 cents a share, the company said.

In trading today, the stock dropped $2.13, or 20 percent, to $8.50. The company's shares have dropped dramatically since its initial public offering a year ago, when the stock closed at $72.81 on the first day of trading.

Gadzoox is based in San Jose, Calif., and makes routers, switches, hubs and other products for storage area networks, centralized high-speed storage systems most popular at large corporations.