ProQuest's Ex-CFO Settles Fraud Charges

The former CFO of Proquest was yesterday charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission in an accounting fraud that the SEC contends cost the company more than $437 million in market capitalization and caused its stock price to drop by more than half its value during a two-month period in early 2006.

Scott Hirth of Carleton, Mich., the former CFO for ProQuest Company's Information and Learning Division, made fraudulent manual journal entries at the end of monthly and quarterly reporting periods in order to favorably alter ProQuest's financial results over a five-year period, the SEC said.

The Ann Arbor, Mich.-based company, now called Voyager Learning Company, agreed to settle the SEC charges. As part of its settlement, Hirth will pay more than $400,000 and admits no wrongdoing. He consented to be permanently barred from serving as an officer and director of a public company and from practicing as an accountant before the SEC.