Then there was the BCCI scandal. The bank claimed to have assets worth $20 billion, but that boast disguised a massive money laundering operation.
Over in the United States, the expert manipulation of accounting loopholes worked for a while as Enron’s share price powered beyond $90 in mid-2000. The following year, the shares were valued at less than $1; Enron collapsed and several senior executives headed to gaol.
Remember WorldCom? This was another US-based outfit which distributed impressively chunky dividends to shareholders until it was discovered that the company had deliberately inflated profits by $4 billion. How do seemingly intelligent people, including the company’s board of directors, for example, miss something as blatant as that?
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