Hewlett Packard and Autonomy: A Fourth Try for Clear Thinking
February 8, 2015
The weekend approacheth. Another legal action takes place. The article “Former Autonomy CFOI Tries Again to Halt HP Shareholder Settlement” does a good job of explaining why Sushovan Hussain (Autonomy’s former CFO) wants to put the brakes on HP’s settlement of a shareholder lawsuit. The legal maneuverings are too complex for me.
According to the article:
The shareholders accused HP of issuing misleading statements about the financial health of Autonomy. Terms of the early settlement deal, since rejected by U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, proposed not only to drop claims against HP, its executives and directors including CEO Meg Whitman, and but also for law firms representing the shareholders to assist HP with any criminal charges that might result against former Autonomy execs including Hussain and the company’s former CEO Mike Lynch. HP is on its fourth attempt to obtain approval from the judge for a settlement. The latest proposal includes terms that would basically bar anyone from suing HP over the Autonomy deal, a move which Hussain says amounts to a legal overreach and strips him of his legal rights.
Several thoughts crossed my mind:
First, HP is investing considerable time, money, and effort in going after Autonomy. But HP bought Autonomy and presumably reviewed the deal before forking over $11 billion.
Second, the after purchase remorse seemed to affect HP management in a surprising way; to wit, HP did not know what it purchased. Isn’t HP management’s job to know what it buys?
Third, with each passing month, HP is lagging farther and farther behind the companies that have leapfrogged Autonomy’s late 1990s technology. Will it be too late for HP to generate the billions in revenue from Autonomy’s technology to recover their investment and generate a return for HP stakeholders?
I find this soap opera lacking the logic of the Tela Novela Entre el amor y el odio. I know whom I would nominate as el odio.
Stephen E Arnold, February 8, 2015
Comments
2 Responses to “Hewlett Packard and Autonomy: A Fourth Try for Clear Thinking”
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
Thanks for any other wonderful article. Where else may anybody get that type
of information in such an ideal way of writing?
I have a presentation next week, and I’m on the look for such info.
It’s appropriate time to make some plans for the long run and it is time to be happy.
I have read this publish and if I could I wish to recommend you few attention-grabbing things or suggestions.
Maybe you could write subsequent articles regarding this article.
I want to read even more things approximately it!