The Sirius XM Radio
Chairman Gary Parsons resigned from the company yesterday. The move isn't really a surprise. Parsons helped guide XM through satellite radio's infancy, but this is Mel Karmazin's company now.
The combination of Sirius and XM may have been billed as a merger of equals, but it was Karmazin's Sirius that was pulling all the strings in acquiring the larger -- yet slower-growing -- XM last year.
Parsons gets to leave the company at an opportune moment. After posting breakeven results for the first time -- and nabbing a Standard & Poor's credit rating upgrade -- no one can accuse Parsons of bailing out of a sinking ship. Sirius XM is here to stay.
Although it accepted Liberty Capital's
Parsons' chairmanship is being passed on to non-executive director Eddy Hartenstein. He's the CEO of the Los Angeles Times, but don't hold the demise of print media against him. He also spent a few years heading up DirecTV
So rest easy, investors.
It was three years ago when Pierce Roberts resigned from the XM board, warning of "a significant chance of a crisis on the horizon." XM fell into Sirius' arms a year later.
No one believes the sky is falling anymore.