Strange – when we wrote Friday’s item on the woes of Milford, Ohio-based Structural Dynamics Research Corp (CI No 2,537), we originally included that the finance chief had quit, because we’d seen that go by on a wire somewhere – but when we went out to look for chapter and verse, we could find no trace of it anywhere so we struck the line: after the issue went to bed, all the wires suddenly lit up with the news that the company’s senior vice-president and chief financial officer, Ronald Hoffman, and vice-president and controller Richard Lajoie, have both left the company to pursue other interests… the auditors have resigned of course, and the company notes that its outside legal counsel, Dinsmore & Shohl, has been asked to conduct an investigation of its internal financial controls and business practices following the discovery that some product shipments initiated by its Far East Headquarters Operation intended for sale to or through third party distribution channels apparently did not represent valid sales, and the firm says that in the course of the investigation it has become clear that a breakdown of internal financial controls had occurred, leading to Messrs Hoffman and Lajoie leaving the company.
