Possible fraud prompts big writedown

Article Excerpt

HEWLETT-PACKARD CO. $12 (New York symbol HPQ; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 2.0 billion; Market cap: $24.0 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 0.2; Dividend yield: 4.4%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.hp.com) paid $11.1 billion in August 2011 for U.K.-based Autonomy Corp., which makes software that helps businesses organize information in a variety of formats, including email, web pages and documents. The company now claims that improper accounting policies made Autonomy look more profitable that it really was. As a result, it wrote down the value of this purchase by $8.8 billion. Hewlett will try to recover some of these losses through lawsuits. However, that could take years. As well, sales of the company’s computers and printers continue to decline as consumers shift to tablet computers. Hewlett-Packard is now a hold. hold…