hi nw,
the eps statement is a bit of a cheat.
first, he cannot take credit from the quarter he arrived at wave. he wasn't ceo at that point. the loss per share the quarter prior to his election as wave's ceo, eps was 8 cents per share. that's a more useful starting point for a measure of his accomplishments and fortunately, it was also q3 so seasonal elements are negated.
second, there's a one-off item in the last quarter's results that reduced the loss (and loss per share) for one quarter only by 2 cents per share.
"During the third quarter of 2014, we identified an error in our accounting for share-based compensation recorded in fiscal years 2011 to 2013 and through the six-months ended June 30, 2014. We assessed the materiality of the error on prior periods’ financial statements and concluded that the error was not material to any of our prior period annual or current and prior year interim financial statements. We elected to correct the error in the three-month period ended September 30, 2014 by decreasing operating expenses by $820,000..."
so 2 of the 3 cents difference between sprague's q3 and solms' q3 is due to an accounting fix.
the remaining 1 cent operating difference isn't much to hang your hat on (although one might protest wave's loss per share was 4 cents in q3,14).
surely this is a better example of a ceo working the numbers to make himself look good and assuming no one will bother to check them.
he was nearly right.
instead, he might have talked about the achievement of reducing wave's costs. he has a genuine claim on that score.
