HP ousts Hurd holdouts from boardroom

Facing a shareholder lawsuit and a probe over the ouster of CEO Mark Hurd, Hewlett-Packard unveiled a boardroom overhaul yesterday that swept away Hurd’s supporters.

HP, which has been under fire for the way it handled Hurd’s departure in August, said four directors will exit at the annual stockholder meeting in March to make room for five new candidates.

A person close to the board said that two departing directors, Joel Hyatt and Robert Ryan, were forced out after supporting Hurd, while the other two, John Joyce and Lucille Salhany, chose to resign.

Hyatt, for instance, was “one of the last holdouts” who came to Hurd’s defense after an internal probe found he doctored his expense reports in his pursuit of an HP contractor.

HP Chairman Ray Lane told CNBC that the departures were “voluntary” and that they “had nothing to do with” Hurd, who was credited with turning around HP following the 2005 resignation of Carly Fiorina.

“It raises a lot of questions,” said Charles Elson, corporate governance expert, referring to the shakeup.

Meg Whitman, the former eBay chief who spent $160 million in her failed bid to become governor of California, will join HP’s board. Other new members are: Shumeet Banerji, CEO of Booz & Co; former General Electric exec Gary Reiner; Patricia Russo, who ran Alcatel-Lucent; and Dominique Senequier, CEO of AXA Private Equity.

A shareholder suit accuses the board of mismanaging Hurd’s departure by awarding him a rich severance package. On Wednesday, HP said it would launch an independent probe into the circumstances of Hurd’s resignation. kwhitehouse@nypost.com