It just wasn’t Tekelec’s week: The chief financial officer of the telecom products developer announced his resignation Monday, its stock got downgraded twice, and at close of trading Tuesday, the share price had sunk nearly 8.6 percent. Has the Calabasas-based company lost its way?

Not according to Michael Attar, director of investor relations. “Even with this pullback, our stock has had a great year. There’s no change in plan, no reason for panic. We’re going to close the quarter out, make it one of the best years in the history of the company and then find a new CFO to keep everything going.”

Tekelec traded 7.5 million shares on Dec. 14, falling nearly $1.83 a share to $19.46 after its chief financial officer, Paul Pucino, resigned to join the much smaller Digital Insight Corp., an online banking service provider.

The highly regarded Pucino, considered to be the company’s “chief financial architect” for the last four-and-a-half years, will leave after Tekelec’s fourth-quarter results are presented toward the end of January. He will join Calabasas-based Digital Insight, a firm with about half the revenues of Tekelec, as its executive vice president and chief financial officer.

Tekelec made the announcement Dec. 13, just after the markets closed. That day, CE Unterberg Towbin downgraded the stock to market perform from buy. The next day, Oppenheimer downgraded the stock to neutral from buy. While neither report cited Pucino’s resignation as the main reason for the downgrade, Oppenheimer did mention it as a factor in the rating change.

“Pucino’s expertise was highly valued on Wall Street,” said Lawrence Harris, an equity analyst at Oppenheimer. “Investors had a great deal of confidence in him.”

WR Hambrecht + Co., which maintained its buy rating, nevertheless dedicated much of its Dec. 14 report to discussing Pucino’s “significant” contributions to Tekelec.

That was enough for investors to unload Tekelec stock, sending it for a nearly 9 percent one-day swoon.

Until then, Tekelec had been having a pretty good year. For the nine months ended Sept. 30, net income was $24.3 million, compared with $7.9 million for the like period a year earlier. Revenues rose 49 percent to $281.1 million.

“While Paul was an important part of the team, he was still just part of the team and we don’t see a reason to skip a beat,” said Attar. “Ultimately, the stock will find its own level.

David Lott

Flare-Up

Shares of Sun Valley-based Flamemaster Corp. surged as much as 122 percent on Dec. 15 after the company set plans for a 7-1 stock split to avoid being delisted by the Nasdaq SmallCap Market.

Flamemaster Chief Executive Joseph Mazin said the stock split will boost the public float to 500,000 shares, the minimum necessary to maintain its stock listing. The company plans to use the additional stock in its previously announced merger with Best Candy & Tobacco Co., a Phoenix-based distributor to convenience stores and casinos.

Flamemaster, a maker of sealants and protective coatings, will be spun off as a private company and Best Candy will take its public listing, Mazin said.

Flamemaster filed with securities regulators in October to delist its stock, citing the financial and management burdens of complying with Sarbanes-Oxley requirements. But by November, the potential deal to acquire Best Candy prompted Flamemaster to appeal its own delisting.

In the deal, Best Candy, with $55 million in sales, would end up with 90 percent of the merged company’s stock. Mazin said Best Candy would be able to use its shares for acquisitions. Best Candy executives did not return calls.

Flamemaster closed at $55.50 on Dec. 15, a gain for the day of $22.50 per share. Earlier, the shares had reached as high as $69.60 each.

Kate Berry