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Systemax

Systemax exec resigns, must hand over $11 million

Gilbert Fiorentino, head of Systemax's technology products group, has resigned in the face of undisclosed allegations, the company announced today.

Systemax, which sells computers and electronics online via the TigerDirect, CompUSA, and Circuit City sites, put Fiorentino on administrative leave last month. At the time, the company said that it was determining whether to terminate Fiorentino after completing an investigation into "anonymous whistleblower allegations" related to the company's Miami operations. The company's audit committee, which handles the financial side of the operation, conducted the investigation, according to a 10-K reported filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission in March.

Systemax has not divulged the exact nature of the allegations or whether its investigation turned up anything. … Read more

Relaunched Circuit City site is a triplet

It wasn't long ago that I used these pages to write Circuit City's eulogy. At the time, many of us thought the company would be gone forever. Oh, how wrong we were.

Last week, Circuit City came back to the Web. On May 19, Systemax, the company behind TigerDirect and CompUSA, purchased the Circuit City brand and Web site for $14 million. It took only a few days for Systemax to populate the site with products. And now it's live.

Systemax's decision to acquire Circuit City shouldn't be a surprise. In 2008, the company acquired CompUSA's brand and domain for a discounted price. Systemax then relaunched CompUSA.com. Today, it even operates a series of CompUSA brick-and-mortar stores.

There's currently no indication that Systemax will be opening Circuit City-branded brick-and-mortar stores. Right now, it seems that the company is focusing mainly on CircuitCity.com.

I've spent considerable time on the site, evaluating its design and comparing offers to see if it's a place worth spending cash. And after just a few seconds, it quickly became clear that it's basically just CompUSA.com (or TigerDirect.com) with a different name and logo.… Read more