All is not well at Meg Whitman ’s HP , we learned during the company ’s fourth - quarter earnings call this morning . HP just record a $ 9 billion devaluation of its assets stemming from serious accounting tomfoolery at a company that HP bought for $ 11 billion last year . Ouch .
Last August , HP grease one’s palms theBritish software program company Autonomy for $ 11.1 billionmaking it one of HP ’s grownup assets . We know at the timethat it was probably a misunderstanding , but the raft turned out to be so much worse than we could have imagined . In today ’s call , HP take that Autonomy ’s books had been cooked before HP ever got there , and the troupe will take an $ 8.8 billion strike to its counterpoise canvass to compensate . Some nitty - gritty from theearnings statement :
https://gizmodo.com/hps-buying-giant-software-company-autonomy-and-spinning-5832225
The legal age of this impairment care is colligate to serious account statement impropriety , disclosure failures and unlimited misrepresentation at Autonomy Corporation plc that pass off prior to HP ’s acquisition of Autonomy and the associated impact of those improprieties , failures and misrepresentations on the ask succeeding fiscal performance of the Autonomy business over the long - term .
So even though Autonomy ’s accounting department was apparently staff by liars , the software program engineering science is still sound . If I were an HP investor , I would be pissed . What , was HP too busy testing printing machine apps to do any due diligence ? . [ HPviaEngadget ]
This post has been updated to shine that the Autonomy purchase toll was $ 11.1 billion , not $ 10 billion as previously express . Ouch .
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