July 10th, 2007
Michael Capellas has landed
Michael Capellas, former CEO of Compaq and MCI (formerly Worldcom), has landed at First Data Corp.
First Data Corp. is an e-commerce payment company that you probably run into every day via services as the STAR ATM network, TeleCheck and various back-end commerce systems. The company is also being bought out by private equity giant Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.
Capellas will succeed Henry C. Duques who has been First Data CEO since November 2005.
With the move First Data lands a first-rate CEO and Capellas gets a plum private equity gig. Let’s chart Capellas’ career quickly:
- Capellas runs Compaq then sells to Hewlett-Packard;
- Capellas takes the reins at MCI does a bang-up job of fixing the Worldcom disaster and then sells to Verizon for a nice premium.
It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out the next moves. It’ll look like this:
- Capellas becomes CEO at First Data and gets hooked up with a sweet compensation package (there are not griping shareholders in private equity);
- First Data goes public again (after all that’s how KKR will cash out);
- Capellas stays CEO and perhaps sells First Data to another firm.
That’s not a bad blueprint at all for a guy that used to be a chief information officer.
“I look forward to joining First Data at this pivotal time and believe the company is uniquely positioned to pioneer innovative technologies for the next-generation of electronic and mobile commerce around the world.”
First Data’s track record backs his statement up. First Data is likely to be Capellas’ best gig when it comes to assets to manage.
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and Editorial Director of ZDNet sister site TechRepublic. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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