Hewlett-Packard’s Explanation Just Makes No Sense

Nov. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Here’s the problem with Hewlett-Packard Co.’s explanation today for why it took an $8.8 billionwritedown related to its purchase of Autonomy Corp.: The numbersdon’t make sense.

HP said “more than $5 billion” of the writedown “islinked to serious accounting improprieties, misrepresentationand disclosure failures discovered by an internal investigationby HP and forensic review into Autonomy’s accounting practicesprior to its acquisition by HP.”