Deals
HP Leadership Seen Lacking for Turnaround After Writedown
This article is for subscribers only.
Hewlett-Packard Co.’s $8.8 billion writedown tied to the purchase of software maker Autonomy Corp. is fueling concern that Chief Executive Officer Meg Whitman and her board aren’t up to the task of engineering a turnaround.
Whitman joined Chairman Ray Lane and other directors in unanimously supporting the deal pushed by then-CEO Leo Apotheker in August 2011. It then took Hewlett-Packard 15 months to go public with allegations of accounting improprieties, saying a probe began after an Autonomy executive came forward in May.