Hewlett-Packard Co. took an $8.8 billion charge citing "a willful effort to mislead investors and potential buyers" at Autonomy Corp., the software company it agreed to purchase last year for $10.3 billion.
"HP is extremely disappointed to find that some former members of Autonomy's management team used accounting improprieties, misrepresentations and disclosure failures to inflate the underlying financial metrics of the company, prior to Autonomy's acquisition by HP," Palo Alto, California-based Hewlett-Packard said today in a statement.
More than $5 billion of the total charge is due to accounting practices, which were disclosed by a senior executive at Autonomy after founder Mike Lynch departed, Hewlett-Packard said. Autonomy's U.K. spokesman George Lockett didn't have an immediate comment.
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