The axe fell on five of Opera’s seven board members at a shareholders meeting last week. They have been replaced by three new members.
The reshuffle was fully backed by shareholders who hold 80% of the company.
The curtain fell on the axed board members after they had reportedly tried to dislodge Tetzchner as CEO after becoming impatient with the company’s weak performance that resulted in its share price nose-diving over 50% in the past year.
Tetzchner, who holds a 15% shareholding in Opera, said in a statement that he had no intention to step down.
Oslo-based Opera makes web browsers for PCs, mobile phone, and hand-held PDAs. It’s browsers were the first to sport multiple tabs in a window. But any early technological lead it might have had in the market as an alternative to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer was quickly eaten away by browsers like Mozilla Firefox and Apple’s and more recently Apple’s Windows Safari
Opera’s stock price rose 8% to $2.58 (15.50 Krone) in Friday trading on Oslo’s OBX.
