Analyst Note
| Mark Cash |On Sept. 9, HP announced that its CFO, Steve Fieler is departing the company for an outside role. Marie Myers will assume the role of acting CFO on Oct. 1, and HP expects to start a search for a permanent CFO with internal and external candidates. Myers is currently leading HP's IT and transformational organization, which we see as a key position as HP works to extract costs and gain efficiencies with technology upgrades. She will serve her current position alongside the CFO duties, and comes from a background of 20 years of financial experience at HP. Her background provides us with confidence in her understanding of the business and HP's overarching efforts to extract costs and maximize margins while participating in markets with secular spending headwinds over the longer term. Importantly, we do not believe this announcement changes any of HP's robust shareholder return plan, which includes returning 100% of free cash flow through dividends and buybacks that was announced to oppose Xerox's takeover bid. Similarly, the announcement does not change our long-term view of HP. We are maintaining our $20 fair value estimate, and view shares as fairly valued.