$9bn Autonomy scam at Hewlett-Packard
the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's enforcement division and the UK's Serious Fraud Office for civil and criminal investigation. It said it would take legal action to recoup "what we can for our shareholders."
Both agencies declined to comment.
HP Chief Executive Meg Whitman, who voted for the deal while she was on HP's board, said the investigation of Autonomy's finances - both external and internal - will take multiple years as it makes it way through the courts in both countries.
"Most of the board was here and voted for this deal, and we feel terribly about that," said Whitman on a call with analysts. "The board relied on audited financials, audited by Deloitte. Not Brand X accounting firm, but Deloitte," she said, adding that KPMG was hired to audit Deloitte.
"Neither of them saw what we now see after someone came forward to point us in the right direction," Whitman said.
INFLATED SALES, REVENUE
HP alleged that Autonomy's former management inflated revenue and gross margins to mislead potential buyers. It said Autonomy executives mischaracterized revenue from low-end hardware sales as software sales and booked some licensing deals with partners as revenue, even though no customer bought products.
HP said Autonomy claimed its gross margins were in the 40 percent to 45 percent range while realistically they were in the 28 percent to 30 percent range.
Moreover, Autonomy always represented itself as a software firm but 10 percent to 15 percent of its revenue came from money-losing sales of low-end hardware, HP said.
The company also claimed that
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