Inside story of HP deal to be told in trial of fallen tech star
SAN FRANCISCO — An $11 billion acquisition that backfired on Silicon Valley pioneer Hewlett Packard more than a decade ago was resurrected during a trial Monday that will explore whether the deal was an illegal rip-off or a case of botched management.
The criminal trial in San Francisco federal court revolves around HP’s acquisition of British software maker Autonomy, a deal that was celebrated as a coup when it was announced in 2011, only to become a costly debacle.
Before HP wrapped up the deal, Meg Whitman was hired to be CEO of the company started 85 years ago by Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard in a Palo Alto, California, garage that has become a Silicon Valley shrine.
Whitman, who rose to fame and fortune while running online commerce site eBay in its formative years, had hoped the Autonomy deal would bolster her efforts to lift HP out of the doldrums; instead, it became an albatross that dragged the company down.
As HP’s fortunes continued to sag, Whitman laid off thousands of workers and eventually engineered a breakup that split the storied company into two entities in 2015. She stepped down as CEO of the spunoff company, Hewlett Packard Enterprises in 2018.
The alleged villains in the trial are former Autonomy CEO Mike Lynch, who once was lionized as a shining example of British ingenuity, and Stephen Chamberlain, Autonomy’s former vice president of finance. Both are defending themselves against 16 felony counts of fraud and conspiracy in a trial expected to run until late May or June and include testimony from more than 40 witnesses.
Autonomy’s former chief financial officer, Sushovan Hussain, was convicted on 16 criminal counts of fraud and conspiracy and sentenced to five years in prison in 2019.
The trial targeting Lynch and Chamberlain is also expected to cast a spotlight on Whitman, who dipped into her estimated fortune of $3 billion to finance an unsuccessful campaign to become California governor as the Republican Party nominee in 2010.
Not long after that political setback, Whitman joined HP’s board and then was tapped to replace company CEO Leo Apotheker, who had negotiated the Autonomy acquisition before being replaced in September 2011 just before the deal was completed.
At the time, HP was struggling to remain relevant amid a technological shift to mobile computing being driven by the then-rising popularity of smartphones. The upheaval depressed demand for desktop and laptop computers, a market that had been one of HP’s financial cornerstones. In an effort to lessen its dependence on PCs, HP snapped up Autonomy to gain ownership of software focused on helping businesses quickly sift through vital information stored in email, phone records and other repositories.
But HP uncovered evidence that Autonomy had inflated its value after the takeover, prompting Whitman to write off nearly $9 billion of the acquisition price.