Worst CEO of the Year

Herb Greenberg (who specializes in funny smells coming from heavily promoted companies) named Take-Two's Paul Eibeler as the "winner" of the Worst CEO of the Year award.
Eibeler is the latest in a revolving door of CEOs at the video game maker, having taken the post in January for what amounts to a second tour of duty in the company's executive suite. He left in April of 2003 for "medical leave," only to resurface three months later as president of Acclaim North America -- a job he held for just three months. He rejoined Take-Two in April 2004 as president, before his elevation to CEO. (Acclaim, meanwhile, filed for bankruptcy liquidation in August 2004.) Eibeler's climb to the top coincided with founder and ex-Chairman Ryan Brandt's topple by regulators to a non-executive position in the wake of accounting issues. As of fiscal 2005's proxy, filed last May, Brandt was still the company's highest-paid executive; he now runs one of the company's high profile divisions, which itself has not done tremendously well. (But, don't worry, he's not an executive.)Eibeler, for his part, has done such a poor job getting his arms around the company that Take-Two has missed its own earnings guidance for multiple quarters. So far this year it has sliced earnings guidance by more than 60% to a range of 53 cents to 56 cents a share, after the company's hot-selling game, Grand Theft Auto, was given the dreaded "adult' rating by the video software industry's rating group. The company has since suffered a series of setbacks on the rollouts of newer games -- a perennial problem at Take-Two that appears to be getting worse. Take-Two has been quite a story, at least in terms of stock price. It was under $4 a share in 1998 and peaked at over $29 earlier this year. Now, though, it's in the $19 range, and they're definitely leaking fuel. They also own one of the best sports game developers in the world (Visual Concepts), and if they implode, it will be a disaster for sports gamers.