Qwest CEO stands down

Is your company's debt spiralling out of control and its share price plunging? Then it's time for you to 'spend more time with the family'...

Joseph Nacchio, CEO of Qwest Communications, has left his job following a disastrous year in which total losses at the company hit $26.4bn and its share price crashed by 71 per cent. Richard Notebaert, former CEO of Tellabs, has taken Nacchio's place at the head of the business as of today. Nacchio said he wanted to spend more time with his family after more than five years at Qwest but observers said an SEC investigation into the company's accounts destroyed investor confidence in him. The business recently came under the scrutiny of the SEC for making 'dark fibre' trades with Global Networks, where it swapped spare network capacity to fake demand for its services. First quarter losses at the company rose to $698m or 42 cents per share from $46m or three cents per share this time last year. The company is one of many telcos which overestimated the market for data carrying services and got into massive debt building a network for which there was little demand.