Despite Hewlett-Packard’s current problems with its board of directors, my sense is that Dell, Inc. would prefer to have H-P’s problems rather than the ones that the Round Rock-based computer manufacturer faces (previous posts here and here).
This NY Times article reports that Dell will delay filing its fiscal second-quarter reports because of a widening Securities and Exchange Commission investigation and an internal company probe into its financial accounting. To make matters worse, Dell also reported that the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York has subpoenaed records in regard to an investigation of the company’s financial reporting from 2002 to present. Continuing a trend that has knocked 30% of the value of Dell’s stock this year, Dell shares declined over 2% yesterday to $21.19.
Dell was already being investigated by the SEC for the timing of its revenue recording, but yesterday’s announcement stated that the investigations have branched into areas “relating to accruals, reserves and other balance sheet items.”
Translation: “We many need to restate prior earnings.”
Houston's Clear Thinkers
Longtime Houston attorney Tom Kirkendall's observations on developments in law, business, medicine, culture, sports, and other matters of general interest to the Houston business, professional, and academic communities.
How I see it is this. The Government is going to scrutinize every company for little discrepancies that cause stock prices to go down and build a case that every Executive staff is corrupt. I tell you what is the incentive for anyone in this country to IPO a new company. That may be why the trend is to IPO in other countries versus here. We’ll have to wait and see.