Out of the Office

OfficeMax Inc. (Itasca, Ill.), the office supplies retailer under fire for some internal accounting discrepancies, has announced the resignation of Christopher Milliken as president and ceo. Executive chairman George Harad has been appointed by the board of directors to serve as ceo on an interim basis.

In January, the company announced that it had uncovered improprieties in the way it accounted for rebates from a large supplier. Brian Anderson, the chief financial officer, resigned less than a month later. The company says it has fired six employees as a result of an internal investigation, which confirmed that workers had fabricated supporting documentation for about $3.3 million in rebates charged to a vendor in 2003 and 2004.

The president of its retail division, Gary Peterson, resigned in January amid persistently sluggish sales. OfficeMax has been mired in third place in its retail sector, behind Staples Inc. (Framingham, Mass.) and Office Depot Inc. (Delray Beach, Fla.).

OfficeMax has delayed announcing its fourth quarter earnings until its internal investigation is complete, but it has already announced that the quarter’s sales were lower than expected. The company also said it found irregularities in the way it booked revenue last year, and would probably restate its earnings for the first three quarters.