Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Cambridge Heart reduces salaries, eliminates board fees

By Craig M. Douglas

Cambridge Heart Inc., a developer of non-invasive diagnostic sensors for cardiac disease, has levied a 10 percent, across-the-board salary cut on its senior officials and eliminated some of the fees paid to its non-employee directors.

The Cambridge company said the affected employees and directors have been awarded stock options to make up for the direct-pay cuts.

The annual salary rates, post the 10 percent salary cut, are as follows:

    * $247,500 for Ali Haghighi-Mood, president and CEO
    * $108,000 for Roderick de Greef, chairman of the board
    * $83,700 for Vincenzo LiCausi, chief financial officer

To offset the reduction in direct pay, the company said it granted those same senior officials options to acquire shares of Cambridge Heart common stock. Those options can be exercised to acquire the following share amounts:

    * 198,949 shares for Haghighi-Mood
    * 86,814 for de Greef
    * 67,281 shares for LiCausi

Meanwhile, Cambridge Heart (OTCBB: CAMH) said effective March 31 it will eliminate or reduce the cash compensation paid to non-employee directors. Meeting fees — which ran between $2,500 and $3,125 per director for in-person meetings and between $500 and $625 for remote attendees — have been eliminated. The company’s annual cash retainer for directors has been reduced from $15,000 to $12,000.

To offset those reductions in pay, the company has awarded each non-employee director $13,000 in stock options — that is, an option to purchase 112,858 shares of Cambridge Heart common stock.

In December, Cambridge Heart raised $1.8 million by selling shares of Series D convertible preferred stock to roughly a dozen investors.

For the nine months ended Sept. 30, Cambridge Heart booked $2.4 million in revenue and a net loss of $5.6 million. During the same span a year earlier, the company booked $3.2 million in revenue and a net loss of $7.1 million.

Cambridge Heart said it had $2.7 million in cash and restricted cash as of Sept. 30, or roughly half the amount on hand at the beginning of 2009.