One of these days, the stories will come together about Hewlett
Packard and Autonomy. In the mean time -
They paid too much. They took an $8 billion write down on the
acquisition. They accused the Autonomy of poor bookkeeping. Hewlett Packard’s financial advisors on the
acquisition stated that they did not need to do a total deep dive
before putting their blessing on the acquisition. The prior CEO of Autonomy, Leo Apotheker, states
that the books were correct at the time of the acquisition and that revenue was
accrued for properly.
Now Hewlett Packard and CEO Meg Whitman are denying that the
company has tried to sell Autonomy and SAP is saying that they were approached. In addition, for Hewlett Packard, April
showers brought… May lawsuits, as they
are now facing a $1 billion shareholder lawsuit over the acquisition. The California suite filed at California's
San Francisco district court, which accuses those who oversaw the deal of
conducting "cursory due diligence on a polluted and vastly overvalued
asset". $1 billion buys a whole lot
of HP tablets. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/may/07/shareholders-sue-hp-autonomy-deal
The stock has been recovering somewhat in price from its 52
week low of just under $11.35 to a 52 week high of $24 in late March. When Meg Whitman took over the reins of
Hewlett Packard as CEO, the stock was trading at around
$23. For their first fiscal quarter of
this year, net revenue was down $28 B, lower than in fiscal Q1 2012. Earnings
were positive at $1.2 B, versus a loss of just under $7 B the previous
quarter. The stock is essentially
unchanged, though, from a year ago while the Dow and NASDAQ are up about 25%. Hewlett Packard has outperformed beleaguered
Dell (another interesting story) but not by much.
Whitman may make it
through the end of 2013. If so, Oracle’s
Hurd, formerly of Hewlett Packard, will have to find a different partner for “Dancing
with the Stars”. The earnings conference
call for the latest quarter is scheduled for May 22 after the markets close.
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