Hewlett Packard said Autonomy, the software firm it bought in 2011, overstated profits at one of its main British units by 81 percent in the year before it was sold in Britain’s biggest ever technology deal.
Little over a year after the $11.7 billion acquisition, the Silicon Valley company wrote down the value of Autonomy by $8.8 billion, accusing the management of accounting irregularities.
The former owner of Autonomy continues to deny that he overstated the profits, but it seems pretty clear cut.
Why do you say it seems clear cut? Is there a copy of the actual filing?
Not arguing, just asking. I didn’t see a link to the filing (or a detailed explanation) in the Reuters article.
The second question would be why the other 2 auditing firms didn’t find anything. Were they bribed or was it regulatory capture?
During the 21st century, HP was the most badly-managed big business in the world. It is not even controversial to say so. So it is really hard to take anything they say at face value. They have a huge incentive to spread the blame around.
If they are right about Autonomy, what is the excuse for Palm and Compaq, which they also paid too much money for and then wrote down almost immediately? What’s the excuse for the sexual harassment? The problems with their board?
Sorry, I’m not buying HP’s story, same as I’m not buying any of their products.