Jun. 6--The new chief executive officer of Las Vegas-based PurchasePro.com said the troubled Internet company needs to re-establish its credibility with Wall Street by improving its financial reporting. 

That's where Rick Clemmer can help. 

The 49-year-old came to PurchasePro as chief financial officer a month ago from Quantum Corp. in California's Silicon Valley, where he held the same position. 

Clemmer was named CEO of PurchasePro Tuesday, replacing Charles "Junior" Johnson, the flamboyant founder of the business-to-business company that got its start in 1996 through Las Vegas' hospitality industry. 

PurchasePro software is used to link buyers with a large pool of suppliers, resulting in a more competitive bidding process and saving administrative costs. 

Clemmer said the company is going to make fundamental changes in the way it conducts certain business practices, but the product that generated $60 million in sales last year remains PurchasePro's key strength. 

"Clearly, we're going to take a more systematic approach," he said. "We've clearly had some blocks in the road, more along the lines of financial reporting." 

PurchasePro, whose shares dropped 12 cents Tuesday to $2.06, issued a first-quarter warning in late April that earnings would miss analyst estimates by 10 cents a share just hours before a scheduled financial report. 

A couple of days later, the company reported a net loss of $18.1 million, or 26 cents a share, for the first quarter. 

"I think they have a challenge in front of them," said Timothy Getz, an analyst for Prudential Securities in San Francisco. 

"In the process of moving from a company run by a bunch of entrepreneurs to a company run by more professional management, somewhere along the line it's fallen down and lost credibility. 

"They had made certain promises -- not only made the promises but hyped the promises -- and didn't live up to them in terms of financial expectations." 

Clemmer, who spent 20 years as a CFO at Texas Instruments before going to California, said his challenge is to execute on Johnson's vision for the company. 

"The key element is to build great software to give companies access to, and how we populate that network, so the strategy of how we roll that out is significant," Clemmer said. 

"The bottom line is we've proven it has the capability to provide services in a broader cross-section than the hospitality industry." 

He said it took a while for casinos in Las Vegas to break away from the traditional buyer-seller process, and it's the "acceptance and understanding that it's a different way of doing business" that PurchasePro must pursue. 

The company, headquartered in the Flynn Gallagher Center at Buffalo Drive and Cheyenne Avenue, grew from 75 employees to more than 600 before trimming back to 525 in May. 

Clemmer said no further layoffs are planned, "but it's certainly something we'll be taking a close look at ... to understand sales potential in relation to our resource level." 

PurchasePro made its initial public offering in September 1999 at $27 a share and saw it climb to more than $160 a share through joint venture partnerships with Office Depot, Sprint and America Online. 

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