Comments on: HP requests fraud investigation into Autonomy deal

By: Neuromancer

Neuromancer — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 09:23:27 +0000

Yep we screwed up let’s blame the “furniner” the fault was it ;puting so much goodwill and intangibles on the blance sheet . HP realy needs a Fred Mulally type to cull the “croak voiced daleks” and get back to HP’s engineering roots

By: PrincetonAl

PrincetonAl — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 08:25:50 +0000

I don’t know about the fraud charges, but everyone thought they overpaid at the time wildly. I thought they were suckers big time for paying this much.

The crime here is not just the potential accounting proprieties, but also Leo and the board and agreeing to do such a dumb deal at the time at shareholder’s expense.

By: Carlos Spicyweiner

Carlos Spicyweiner — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 21:48:40 +0000

There are several billion dollar companies there are not household names, so that is not a good argument.

There are limits to what can be seen by a M&A team going into a company so finding fraud is not an easy task with that level of insight.

It’s a black eye to say the least, but the HP board hasn’t done anything atrocious here. Just keep in mind that Facebook paid a billion for Instagram.

By: Barb Darrow

Barb Darrow — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 14:04:15 +0000

agreed. at the time of this deal EVERYONE thought the price was way too high. Everyone apparently but HP’s board. Sad.

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 13:54:30 +0000

HP was duped as they wanted to be duped. Did anyone in the US know about Autonomy before the HP purchase? It was hardly a household name, and they supposedly had billions in revenue? It was fishy from the get go.
If there is any fraud investigation it should be against HP management for continuously making the wrong decisions.