Autonomy怎樣愚弄了惠普

英國軟件公司Autonomy采用種種不當手段，虛報營收。以上百億美元價格收購Autonomy沒多久，惠普就不得不計提巨額減值損失。不要嘲笑惠普，這種事情有可能發生在任何一家公司身上。

2011年，惠普斥資111億美元收購了英國軟件公司Autonomy，收購溢價高達64%。Autonomy在2010年的收入接近10億美元，而且“一直保持著兩位數的收入增速，毛利潤率和營業利潤率分別為87%和43%”。他們是這么認為的。剛過一年，惠普就計提了88億美元的減值損失，并稱原因是Autonomy賬目有誤。投資者不禁要問，豪擲111億美元之前惠普怎么會錯得這么離譜？他們還想知道，究竟是什么讓惠普決定計提如此巨額的減值損失。

現在我們知道了。11月中旬，美國證監會命令Autonomy美國分公司前首席執行官克里斯托弗·伊根交出他從此項收購中獲得的80萬美元酬勞，原因是他參與夸大了惠普作為收購依憑的數據。這筆收購案現已真相大白。雖然本案和現行國際會計準則的收入確認規則有關，但它有可能再次發生在任何一家公司身上。

有一點確實很突出，那就是在收購前的10個季度中，Autonomy的每季度收入和分析師預期的差距不到4%。這樣的精準度應該引起懷疑?；仡^來看，極其準確地實現收入目標著實可疑。下面就是他們采用的手法：

經銷商交易

Autonomy駐英國高級經理策劃了一項讓收入幾乎虛增2億美元的活動。該公司通過所謂的“增值”經銷商銷售軟件。這些合法企業為終端用戶提供額外服務和支持，同時銷售Autonomy的軟件。僅5家經銷商就在30筆交易中為Autonomy提供了難稱合法的服務。

如果Autonomy正在和某位終端用戶洽談生意，但無法在該季度內完成這筆交易，伊根就會在該季度最后一天或最后幾天去找經銷商，說這筆交易即將完成。他會以高額傭金為誘餌，勸經銷商購買Autonomy的軟件。隨后，經銷商可以把軟件賣給這位終端用戶，但Autonomy會繼續控制這樣的交易，并會在不借助經銷商的情況下和終端用戶談判。這類交易絕不應該計為收入。

商品的風險、回報以及所有權都留在Autonomy手中，并沒有到經銷商或終端用戶那里。在真正的所有權轉移中，Autonomy的持續參與會達到不正常的水平。把產品賣給終端用戶后，Autonomy才能獲得交易帶來的收益。在某些階段，這樣的交易給Autonomy的收入帶來了高達15%的“增幅”。它們至關重要——有了這些交易，Autonomy披露的業績就會在分析師的預測范圍以內。

提前結款交易

從2009 年到2011年，在每個季度結束后，Autonomy財務部門最高負責人都會指導伊根和經銷商提前結算采購訂單；有一次這位負責人還親自取得了這些不干凈的文件。如此一來，該公司就將后一個季度的收入“拉到”剛剛結束的那個季度中，這些拉過去的收入有時剛好夠Autonomy實現收入目標。在任何一家公司的賬目中，將采購訂單提前結款都是作假。從國際會計準則的角度看，這些交易不能帶來收入，因為Autonomy并未在季度結束前將軟件所有權的風險和回報轉移給買家，這種轉移都發生在了后一個季度。

雙向交易

Autonomy必須得讓經銷商拿到現金，這樣它們才能把虛假銷售的款項付給Autonomy，同時產生一系列文件記錄，從而向審計機構證明銷售款已經支付。這是必需的障眼法，以免引起審計機構的懷疑。制造這種假象的手法就是和經銷商進行雙向交易。Autonomy從經銷商那里采購各種多余的產品，經銷商幾乎在同時向Autonomy償還債務。這樣的雙向交易由Autonomy的最高財務負責人發明，向該公司支付的虛假款項至少達到4500萬美元。

在最高財務負責人授意下，伊根參與了部分雙向交易。作為Autonomy和經銷商之間的渠道，伊根知道，而且也應該明白，這些并非Autonomy真正的采購。他知道Autonomy并未將這些采購的成本和其他廠商的同類產品價格進行比較；他也沒有就合同條款展開談判。

這些事實說明了什么問題呢？

解決問題有多種途徑

大多數不正當交易都由Autonomy的最高財務負責人操刀。這個人不在美國，也就不在美國證監會的直接控制范圍以內。伊根更像是爪牙，而非主謀。他在美國執行老板的計劃，在這里，至少有一位大型投資者把Autonomy的虛假財務報告作為依據。美國證監會可以找到伊根，他也幫助證監會找出了Autonomy的假賬。

如果惠普不收購Autonomy，如果沒有伊根的協助，這些虛假交易會浮出水面嗎？很可能不會。這些虛假交易貌似真實，讓感到懷疑的人無法追蹤。提前結算的交易文件和沒有提前結算的看上去毫無差別；經過安排，來自雙向交易的資金讓虛假應收賬款看上去像真的一樣。如果其他地方也沒有引起懷疑，這些做法可能會讓審計機構滿意而歸。

審計機構應該發現這些虛假交易嗎？可能吧。如果他們調查了那些經銷商交易，以確定賣給經銷商的產品是否真的到了終端用戶手里，審計機構或許就會進行更深入的調查。要知道，并不是所有產品都是這樣。在這10個季度中，這樣的交易只出現了30次。審計機構的運氣得非常好，才能在這么長的時間里發現如此少量能激發其好奇心的交易。然而，如果奇怪的交易總是集中在季度結束前的幾天里，他們就應該注意到并進行更深的挖掘。

這些情況都出現在國際會計準則之下。美國通用會計準則下會發生這種事嗎？毫無疑問。問題并不在于準則，出問題的是參與者的意圖。

會計準則不能防止虛假文件或提前結算采購訂單的出現。沒有哪套規則能防止想鉆空子的經理人干壞事，就連新的收入確認標準也是如此。

杰克·T·切謝爾斯基是巴爾的摩資產管理和研究公司R.G.Associates總裁，該公司為機構投資者提供研究服務資訊刊物《The Analyst’s Accounting Observer》?；萜蘸虯utonomy都不是其客戶。（財富中文網）

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譯者：Charlie

審校：詹妮

This could happen to any company.

In 2011, Hewlett-Packard paid $11.1 billion for UK software firm Autonomy – a 64% premium for a company with nearly $1 billion of 2010 revenues, and possessing “a consistent track record of double-digit revenue growth, with 87 percent gross margins and 43 percent operating margins.” So they thought. Little more than a year later, HP recorded an $8.8 billion impairment charge, citing Autonomy’s accounting improprieties as the reason. Investors wondered how could HP have gotten it so wrong before they plunked down $11.1 billion in cash? And they wondered what HP uncovered that led to the writedown.

Now we know. In mid-November, the SEC ordered the former CEO of Autonomy’s U.S. operations, Christopher Egan, to fork over $800,000 of compensation resulting from the takeover, in which HP relied on figures he had helped inflate. The facts of the case are now public. Although this case related to current IFRS revenue recognition rules, it can happen again, and to any company.

One fact really stands out: in each of the 10 quarters preceding the acquisition, Autonomy’s revenues were within 4% of analyst expectations. That’s a level of precision that should arouse suspicion. In hindsight, achieving revenue targets like clockwork looks awfully strange. Here’s how they did it.

Reseller transactions

Autonomy’s UK-based senior managers directed a program swelling revenues by almost $200 million. Autonomy sold its software through “value-added” resellers, legitimate businesses providing additional services and support to product end users while also selling Autonomy’s software. Just five resellers, in 30 transactions, provided services to Autonomy that couldn’t be called legitimate.

When Autonomy was negotiating a sale to an end user, but couldn’t close the sale by quarter’s end, Egan would approach the resellers on or near the last day of the quarter, saying the deal was nearly done. Egan coaxed the resellers to buy Autonomy software by paying them hefty commissions. The resellers could then sell the software to a specified end user – but Autonomy maintained control of the deals and handled negotiations with the end user without the resellers’ aid. There’s no way these transactions could be revenue.

Autonomy retained risks, rewards and ownership of the goods – not the resellers, and not the end users. Autonomy was still exercising continuing involvement to an abnormal degree for a real transfer of ownership to occur. And the benefits of the deals didn’t accrue to Autonomy until they were sold to an end user. These transactions “grew” Autonomy’s revenues by as much as 15% in some periods. They were critical: they enabled the firm to report financial results within the boundaries of analyst expectations.

Backdated transactions

Between 2009 and 2011, after a quarter’s close, Autonomy’s most senior finance executive directed Egan to procure backdated purchase orders from resellers; once, the executive obtained the dirty documentation personally. This resulted in revenue “pulled” from a later quarter into the one just closed – sometimes just enough revenue to let Autonomy hit its revenue target. In anyone’s book, backdating purchase orders is a falsification of facts. Viewed through an IFRS accounting lens, these transactions couldn’t be called revenues because Autonomy didn’t transfer the risk and rewards of software ownership to the buyer, at quarter end. That happened in a later quarter.

Round-trip transactions

Autonomy needed to get cash to the resellers so they could pay Autonomy for the sham sales, creating a paper trail for the auditors demonstrating payments on the sales – a necessary optic, to avoid arousing their suspicions. The illusion was created with round-trip reseller transactions. Autonomy purchased various surplus products from the resellers, with nearly simultaneous payment by the reseller back to Autonomy on debt owed to them. The round-trip transactions were improvised by Autonomy’s senior-most finance executive, and they amounted to at least $45 million of phony paybacks to Autonomy.

On the orders of the most senior financial executive, Egan was involved in some round-trip transactions: he served as the conduit between Autonomy and the resellers, and knew, or should have known, that they didn’t represent genuine purchases by Autonomy. He knew Autonomy did not price the cost of such purchases with other vendors of the same products; he didn’t negotiate agreement terms.

What to make of these facts?

There’s more than one way to skin a cat

Often, the most senior financial executive of Autonomy developed most of the illicit transactions; and being out the country, was not directly within the SEC’s reach. Egan was more of a pawn than a mastermind, and carried out his boss’s plans – inside the United States, where at least one gigantic investor relied on the doctored financial statements. Egan was reachable by the SEC, and he provided them with assistance in ferreting out the falsifications.

Would the sham transactions have been uncovered without HP buying Autonomy – and without Egan’s assistance? It probably wouldn’t have been uncovered. The bogus transactions were designed to look real and throw suspicious parties off the trail. Backdated documents don’t look different from ones that aren’t backdated; the cash paid from the round-trip transactions was arranged to make dummy receivables look real. That would likely satisfy auditors, if their suspicions were unaroused otherwise.

Should the Autonomy auditors have caught the fake transactions? Possibly. Had they investigated the reseller transactions to see if the initial sales to resellers resulted in sales to end users – not all of them did, remember – they might have probed further. There were only 30 such transactions over a 10-quarter period: the auditors would have been awfully lucky to find transactions that piqued their curiosity out of such a small population and over such a long time frame. If odd transactions always showed in the last few days leading up to the quarter end, however, they should have noticed – and dug further.

This occurred under IFRS rules. Could it have happened under GAAP? No doubt. The problem here isn’t with the standards: the problem is the intent of the players involved.

Accounting standards can’t prevent the creation of false documents or backdated purchase orders. No set of rules, not even the new revenue recognition standard, can prevent mischief by managers expected to play by the rules.

Jack T. Ciesielski is president of R.G. Associates, Inc., an asset management and research firm in Baltimore that publishes The Analyst’s Accounting Observer, a research service for institutional investors. Neither Hewlett Packard nor Autonomy are clients of R.G. Associates Inc.