Peregrine Systems Inc has recruited Ken Sexton as CFO and appointed PricewaterhouseCoopers as its accountants in a further bid to bring some stability to the scandal-hit infrastructure management vendor.

The San Diego, California-based company's last CFO left along with the CEO in May after the discovery of "irregularities" over revenue recognition involving as much as $100m in the last two financial years.

New CEO Gary Greenfield knows Sexton well as the two worked together as CEO and CFO of Merant Plc. The appointment is clearly designed to regain the confidence of the investment community and its shares responded by rising 10.8% to $1.02.

PricewaterhouseCoopers is the company's third firm of accountants this year and its first job will be to complete the company's audit. Peregrine replaced Arthur Andersen with KPMG earlier this year in the wake of the Enron scandal, and it was KPMG which uncovered the irregularities in the accounts. However, Peregrine then fired KPMG after it claimed a conflict of interests due to a number of existing contracts with KPMG Consulting.

With the confidence of customers badly jolted, Peregrine said earlier this month that it planned to almost halve its workforce, but claimed that the loss of 1,400 jobs will have a "minimal effect on customers" and the level of support and services it offers.

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