Re: Buyers’ remorse _ Ferranti
remember Ferranti? (Well, younger readers won't, so try https://www.nytimes.com/1989/11/18/business/company-news-ferranti-charges-fraud-in-us-deal.html )
"Ferranti International Signal P.L.C., the British military contractor, said it lost more than $157 million in cash because of fraud in its acquisition of the United States company International Signal and Control. In total, Ferranti said its loss was the equivalent of $338 million as a result of what it called ''a serious fraud'' involving bogus contracts that it unwittingly inherited when it bought the American company in November 1987. Ferranti's deputy managing director, Charles Scott, told a news conference that about half the loss represented cash spirited out of the American concern, the vast majority before the Ferranti takeover."
I also recall significant 'off-balance-sheet debt' being. feature of the demise of Ferranti, and seems to be, sort of, legal:
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/o/obsf.asp
Reminds me of the 'joke':
What is 2 plus 2?
Mathematician: 4.
Engineer: somewhere between 3 and 5.
Accountant: "What would you like it to be?"
Biting the hand that feeds IT
