HP finds fraud at Autonomy - takes hit for $8.8 Billion

[gbp]

Idiots thought it was easy money when they purchased this shady British company. They preferred it over Palm and the webOS business. Look how its coming back to bite them.

Folks Any thoughts ?

HP earnings fall 7 percent in Q4, take a $9 billion hit due to Autonomy 'improprieties'

[HelloNNNewman]

And the horrible mis-steps of HP (Leo) keep dropping share prices. Has this company made a smart move at all in the past 2 years??

From the article (see link for full story):

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) said Tuesday an internal investigation has unearthed accounting fraud at its recently-acquired Autonomy business, prompting the reeling tech giant to take an embarrassing $8.8 billion charge.

H-P, which also disclosed a deeper-than-expected 6.5% drop in fiscal fourth-quarter revenue, said it has asked U.S. and U.K. regulators to launch criminal and civil investigations into the alleged fraud.


Read more: H-P Discovers Fraud at Autonomy, Takes $8.8B Charge | Fox Business

[jrb363]

HP reports $8.8 billion 'impairment charge' due to allegedly fraudulent Autonomy accounting | The Verge

So apparently Leo's big decision to buy Autonomy has not only crushed their stock but HP didn't perform their duty when looking at their books. How one company can hide 8.8 BILLION from the company looking to purchase them is beyond me. Apparently HP was 'Thinking Beyond' common sense when they purchased this company. Mark my words, this Autonomy purchase will do for HP what the Nextel purchase did for Sprint...drag the stock down, cause confusion and division within the company and hurt their value for years to come. As an Accountant I find this nearly impossible to comprehend.

Share prices:

Touchpad in production (8/18/2011): $32.32

Touchpad discontinued (8/19/2011): $23.60

One year later (8/20/2012): $20.09

Accounting scandal (11/20/2012): $11.89 and falling fast. The stock is down over 10% so far today.

[HelloNNNewman]

<<threads merged>>

[OldSkoolVWLover]

8.8 billion, and what was the purchase price?

Please everyone the last 15 months that has been telling me Leo didn't kill HP/webOS please stand up.

[GMMan]

What if HP just kept the status quo? They'd still be losing money over the TouchPad, maybe earning some on Pre3, or getting ahead with the TouchPad Go until Apple pushes out iPad Mini (or maybe it's Apple who was going to make the form factor popular anyway). They probably won't be in this state today. But who knows what Apotheker might come up with next.

[gizmo21]

ahh well another leo-FAIL - takeover was annouced with webOS shutdown

BREAKING: HP shutting down webOS device operations, will "continue to explore options" | webOS Nation

[C-Note]

I want to hear from all of the people who were loudly proclaiming how this was a much better investment toward the future than spending even a fraction of that building up a distinctive mobile technology brand.

With Autonomy, H-P Bought An Old-Fashioned Accounting Scandal. Here's How It Worked. - Forbes

The Forbes article states that basically they got totally scammed in a way that even a college accounting student would have recognized.

While the cash put into webOS would not have guaranteed success, (it takes smarts AND resources), it would have left them in a much better position then they are in now. As they now stand, they have NO presence of any significance in the Mobile market and no realistic prospects in the next three years.

Sigh

[hrminer92]

IMHO, another reason for Leo needing a good swift kick in the nads. I'm sure Whitman could find more than a few volunteers for the task.

[hrminer92]

By now, I would hope that they would have had an updated Touchpad.

[HelloNNNewman]

<another merge>

[C-Note]

Originally Posted by GMMan

What if HP just kept the status quo? They'd still be losing money over the TouchPad, maybe earning some on Pre3, or getting ahead with the TouchPad Go until Apple pushes out iPad Mini (or maybe it's Apple who was going to make the form factor popular anyway). They probably won't be in this state today. But who knows what Apotheker might come up with next.

GMMan, isn't that the question. A group with a modicum of common sense would have done better with the initial investment HP made on webOS... and much better with even a fraction of 10 BILLION dollars spent on Autonomy.
But given the HP penchant for 'fouling' things up, they probably would have squandered any money spent on webOS with poor decision making anyway.

Talk about rubbing salt into the wound...

C

[rsanchez1]

More than a year after killing off webOS, this little gem comes out. HP is now accusing Autonomy, the company it acquired last year and with which it intended to transfrom itself into a services first company instead of a hardware first company, of fraud. HP says Autonomy misrepresented its financials and overvalued itself, so much so that HP had to write down nearly $9B in impairment charges, and it spent $10B acquiring Autonomy. This was enough to send HP's stock plunging 10%.

Here is this other little tidbit:

Whitman said that within H-P, the two executives who led the deal, former CEO Leo Apotheker and former chief of strategy Shane Robison, are both gone.

Old Leo rears his ugly head again. With last year's 20% stock drop in a single day, and today's 10% stock drop (so far), Leo Apotheker is single-handedly responsible for losing at least 30% of HP's value. Not only value, but he's responsible for shattering confidence in HP's hardware business, and completely obliterating HP's hopes of gaining ground in mobile with webOS. As this news comes out, it's another blow to webOS fans. Leo Apotheker pretty much killed everything he touched while at HP.

H-P, Autonomy fiasco: Who else is to blame? - MarketWatch First Take - MarketWatch

[OldSkoolVWLover]

Originally Posted by C-Note

GMMan, isn't that the question. A group with a modicum of common sense would have done better with the initial investment HP made on webOS... and much better with even a fraction of 10 BILLION dollars spent on Autonomy.
But given the HP penchant for 'fouling' things up, they probably would have squandered any money spent on webOS with poor decision making anyway.

Talk about rubbing salt into the wound...

C

I still point (like the broken record I am) to the dismissal/resignation of Mark Hurd. Hurd truly believed in webOS, and wouldn't have set it up to fail as did Leo. With all the info we know now, the removal of Hurd and appointment of Leo was the death of webOS long before any of us knew it.

[geekpeter]

http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/k...laugh_moar.jpg

bwuhahahahahahaha LEO bwuahahahahaha HP hahahahahhh *breathes in* hhahaha.

classic, best news ive heard in ages, its like being a man whos had his car stolen, only to find out the car thief sped off to find it was the cars time to have total brake failure and sped off a cliff Wiley E Coyote style.

bad news but damn if it doesnt make you chuckle anyways.

[OldSkoolVWLover]

<threads merged>

[gbp]

Originally Posted by GMMan

What if HP just kept the status quo? They'd still be losing money over the TouchPad, maybe earning some on Pre3, or getting ahead with the TouchPad Go until Apple pushes out iPad Mini (or maybe it's Apple who was going to make the form factor popular anyway). They probably won't be in this state today. But who knows what Apotheker might come up with next.

In hindsight, HP could have made Touchpad better. My one year old touchpad still works and so is the Pre 3. Yes HP need to invest billions to run the mobile business. But that is better strategy than buying a total scam like Autonomy.

I wonder why people are loosing their memory quick, especially the HP board. Last year this time Larry Ellison made fun of HP Ellison Stirs the Pot Over H-P Deal - WSJ.com

Ellison thought 6 Billion was too much for Autonomy. And HP paid 10 billion. They could have clearly used the 4 billion for running Palm.

[bikeguychicago]

So..... buy? Is this the bottom for HP or will it fall further?

[geekpeter]

starting to think that gram being a seperate entity from HP and having to fend for themselves isnt such a bad thing atm

[Grabber5.0]

Honestly even the services they sell sound like snake-oil to me -- the kind upper management loves to drink.