Bill Campbell Memorial To Delay Apple Inc. Q2 Earnings As Silicon Valley Mourns A Mentor

Companies rarely delay issuing their earnings reports, and when they do it’s typically a bad sign. But Apple Inc. is postponing the release of its second-quarter earnings statement not because of a product-related scandal or accounting irregularities, but rather because a beloved Silicon Valley mentor passed away this week.

Apple said Wednesday that it has rescheduled its earnings release for Tuesday after markets close in New York in order to avoid a conflict a day earlier with the memorial service for Bill Campbell, who played a key role in guiding Apple and Google to their current positions as two of the world’s most valuable tech companies.

“Bill Campbell was a coach and mentor to many of us at Apple, and a member of our family for decades as an executive, advisor, and ultimately a member of our board,” the company said on a memorial page it set up after the 75-year-old businessman died of cancer Monday.

Apple said company executives and employees would join their Silicon Valley colleagues in attending a memorial service for Campbell on Monday. The man affectionately called “Coach” (a nod to his days as coach of the Columbia University football team) was known to have a small ego despite his outsized role steering tech firms through a rapid pace of innovation since the early 1990s. His low-key demeanor is why his name is less recognizeable than, say, Steve Jobs.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is expected to report earnings per share of $1.99 for the three months ending in March, down from $2.33 in the same period last year, according to analysts polled by Thomson Reuters. Revenue is expected to drop to $51.98 billion, from $58.01 billion last year.

Apple has been struggling with a downturn in demand for its iPhones, which make up more than half of the company’s revenue stream. Apple’s share price has fallen 14 percent over the past 12 months, but it’s up about 1.8 percent since the start of the year.