Irvine-based Local.com Corp., which runs online search engines for finding local businesses, has replaced its finance chief after less than two years on the job.
Brenda Aguis, Local.com’s chief financial officer, stepped down for “personal reasons” and said she’s relocating to the east coast, the company said in a statement this week.
She was hired in spring 2009.
Local.com named Ken Cragun as interim chief financial officer. Cragun had been the company’s VP of finance since 2009.
Previously, he was chief financial officer of Modtech Holdings Inc., a supplier of modular buildings.
He held other finance posts at Miva Inc., ImproveNet Inc. and NetCharge.com Inc.
Aguis was the subject of a critical probe of the company in August that sent Local.com’s shares plummeting.
Shares are off some 30% in the past three months on a recent market value of $77 million.
Local.com’s slide started after website TheStreetSweeper.org published a story that raised questions about the credibility of the company’s current and past executives and its way of doing business.
The story, by former TheStreet.com reporter Melissa Davis, is a laundry list of issues the reporter says investors should be aware of.
Local.com refuted the assertions, calling them “loose implications” designed to benefit investors who’ve shorted the company’s shares and profit when they fall.
The story charged Aguis was involved with several small technology companies that were plagued with accounting problems. The story also said she headed a strategy of rapid-fire acquisitions to bulk up numbers.
It also alleged Chief Executive Heath Clarke “pump and dumped” the company’s stock—meaning he gave Wall Street analysts bullish projections and then sold off a lot of his own shares amid a run-up.
Local.com has refuted the claims. An investigation into Street Sweeper and the reporter who penned the stories is in progress, according to Clark.
Local.com runs an online search engine that directs users to local businesses, such as “flowers in Irvine.”
Users also get search results that include offers from local businesses, reviews, links to local websites, maps, driving directions and other features.
Local.com got started a decade ago as Interchange Corp.
Interchange, which went public in 2004, initially surged on the coattails of Google Inc. that same year.
In 2005, the company acquired the Local.com domain name.
Later that year, it did an about-face and halted the licensing business in order to run its own local search site at Local.com.
Its shares fell off a cliff in the following years—plummeting nearly 90% by 2006.
The company has slowly been rebuilding itself since then via acquisitions of customers and a new branding strategy that includes various Web properties.
Late last year, Local.com reorganized and divided itself into three business units, dubbed “owned and operated,” “network” and “sales and advertiser services.”
