Quote to Note: HP and Autonomy
August 5, 2014
I read “HP and Autonomy Bitter Battle.” I found the write up interesting, but I remember my high school Latin teacher offering some phrases to learn. One of them was caveat emptor. According to the Cornell Law Web site, the catchphrase put shoppers on alert when prowling the more interesting shops in 2nd century BCE Rome. The translation which even aspiring and real lawyers learn is:
Let the buyer beware.
The BBC article is less evocative than Milton’s reference to a blue mantle, but it did contain one quote to note for my collection. After explaining the $11 billion deal, the story offers:
The two sides have been at war since HP had to write off most of the purchase price in what now looks like one of the worst deals in corporate history.
I fancy the superlative. The BBC’s position is clearly stated:
What is far from clear amidst the claim and counter claim is whether Autonomy did break any accounting rules in the run up to its sale to HP – and if so, why that was not spotted in the process of due diligence which is a key part of any such deal.
There was one Autonomy when the deal was closed. Prior to the purchase, there were many HP directors, officers, and accountants going over the deal.
I know that Mike Lynch is a pretty bright guy, but was he smart enough to outwit so many folks with green eyeshades, MBAs, and HP calculators?
I have a modest question racing through my mind:
Who was on the HP Board of Directors when the deal was approved?
I may look up the names of this roster of business and technical luminaries some day. I wonder if Meg Whitman recalls who gave the green light for the biggest deal in enterprise search and content processing history?
Even the relatively swift Microsoft paid $1.2 billion for a search company that subsequently was found to have done some fancy dancing with its revenues. HP’s team paid 10 times as much and has become a business school case study for “what now looks like one of the worst deals in corporate history.”
Yikes. Enron displaced?
Stephen E Arnold, August 5, 2014
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