by , 11:00 AM EST, February 5th, 2004

Apple Computer said Thursday that longtime Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Fred Anderson plans to retire June 1. He will be replaced by company controller and senior finance vice president Peter Oppenheimer.

"We have been grooming Peter for this role for four years and he is going to be a great CFO," Mr. Anderson said in a statement. "Peter already has responsibility for almost all of Apple's financial departments and has done an excellent job leading them."

Apple said it intends to name Mr. Anderson, 58, to the board of directors following his retirement. Mr. Anderson also serves as a director of 3Com Corporation and as a board member of Crystal Decisions (TMO story), an information management software firm, enterprise-oriented software developer E.piphany (TMO story), and eBay (TMO story).

Industry analysts said Oppenheimer is the right man for the job. "He's knows the company very well," Charles Wolf of Needham & Co. told The Mac Observer. "He has worked very closely with Fred Anderson and knows the corporate finances better than anyone. I'm sure this will be a smooth transition."

Speaking of Mr. Anderson, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said, "Fred has been one of my closest partners at Apple, and has earned the reputation as one of the finest CFOs in the technology industry. We're going to have a smooth handoff to Peter, who will be a great CFO for Apple, and we'll continue to benefit from Fred's contributions as a member of Apple's Board."

Both executives came to Apple from Automatic Data Processing in 1996. Anderson had been CFO since joining Apple. Mr. Oppenheimer joined Apple from ADP, where he was CFO of one of the four strategic business units.

According to corporate documents, Mr. Anderson's salary in 2002 was US$656,631 a year, making him the 15th highest paid executive among Silicon Valley-based companies, as of May, 2003. After additional gains from stock options, Mr. Anderson made in the range of US$10,789,800 in 2002, according to Silicon Valley.com.

Neither Apple nor Mr. Anderson gave exact reasons for his departure. An Apple spokeswoman was not immediately available for further comment.

In its fiscal first quarter, Apple's revenue surged 36 percent to US$2 billion and its net income grow to US$63 million, compared with a net loss of US$8 million last year.