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Michael Dell defends his chief executive

Dell's founder and chairman has rejected calls for Kevin Rollins to be axed following a major laptop recall and a financial investigation
Written by Tom Espiner, Contributor

Dell chairman Michael Dell has claimed that if critics of the company want to blame someone for the company's recent run of troubles, they should blame him.

Speaking at the company's Technology Day event in New York, Dell responded to critics who claim chief executive Kevin Rollins should quit over the company's current financial problems.

"Feel free to speculate [about Rollins' dismissal]. It's not going to happen," he said.

Dell said that the board of directors was elected each year by the shareholders to determine the management of the company, and that each of the directorial candidates had received 98 percent positive votes.

"I'm the largest shareholder in the company," said Dell. "The vote of the recent directors, including Kevin, was heavily supported by the shareholders. If you want to blame somebody, blame me too.

Dell is facing a possible delisting on the Nasdaq financial index, pending an ongoing investigation into Dell Inc's accounting procedures.

Dell said that Dell Inc is "fully co-operating" with the Securities and Exchange Commission investigation. He added that he expects some "action" around the delisting as a result of the investigation.

"We expect that [action] will occur, and we will go through the process with Nasdaq. There is a 180-day cycle. We fully expect to get this issue resolved," said Dell.

The computer giant was also forced to start recalling 4.1 million laptop batteries in mid-August, which had been supplied by Sony, after several laptops caught fire or exploded.

 


 

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