patrick.net

#hewlettpackardMadame President:
Your Tuesday morning briefing...The radar is always on a 360-degree sweep. Missed by most media outlets is a trial taking place in San Francisco. It is the largest fraud case in the history of Silicon Valley. The gross amount of the fraud was $11.5 billion dollars. After reselling a fraud-plagued asset, the net loss was still a staggering $4 billion dollars.
Was this an elaborate Ponzi scheme like the one pulled off by Bernie Madoff or Robert Stanford? No. Was it a cryptocurrency fraud like FTX where $8 billion was temporarily lost but later recovered? No.
Rather a giant corporation (Hewlett-Packard) led by one of the most capable CEOs in the US, Meg Whitman who is a Harvard MBA and the lady who made PayPal happen. The best and brightest executives, lawyers, accountants, and investigators looked over the acquisition of the British software firm Autonomy by Hewlett Packard in 2012. After much fanfare, Hewlett-Packard paid $11.5 billion for this British software firm. A couple of years later, Hewlett-Packard wrote off $8 billion of the purchase of this software firm. It led to the layoff of some 100,000 employees. Yes, when a big business deal goes bad, not only do the shareholders suffer but working people also suffer.
Some years later Hewlett Packard was able to sell Autonomy to another British firm. $7.5 billion dollars was recovered. There was still a $4 billion loss. All of this loss happened, allegedly, because the CEO of Autonomy and other executives engaged in a massive accounting fraud. Mike Lynch, the former CEO, and Stephen Chamberlain, the former vice president of finance are on trial in a San Francisco Federal court. If convicted of all charges, they could face up to 30 years in prison.
Here is an excellent report for those curious:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_Autonomy#:~:text=In%202017%2C%20HPE%20sold%20its,subsidiaries%20on%201%20September%202017.

Be careful out there!
Stay "Far from the madding crowd."

Amo-a,
-JackW