Goals led Dell to cook the books

news analysis Though Dell has finished an internal investigation into its accounting practices, there are still plenty of questions about the company, which not long ago could do no wrong in the minds of investors and customers.

What we know now is that Dell's finance department was apparently willing to fudge numbers to ensure it would hit or surpass its quarterly earnings forecasts. The unit seems to have done that with the knowledge of, or sometimes at the request of, senior executives. And the guilty parties did it because Dell's accounting department didn't strictly follow generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP, Chief Financial Officer Donald Carty said in a conference call Thursday afternoon. Carty became CFO after Jim Schneider stepped down in January.

The department used "inappropriate accounting decisions and entries that appear to have been largely motivated to achieve desired accounting results," Carty said during the call with investors, apparently reading from a document filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission explaining the results of the company's investigation.

The SEC's separate investigation is still under way.

Dell felt so pressured to meet Wall Street expectations that its finance department bent accounting rules to make up for shortfalls in certain quarters and underreported earnings results in others, each time ensuring that Dell seemed to hit earnings targets that financial analysts were expecting. Carty didn't go into detail, but it appears much of the accounting manipulation involved the timing of expenses and payments recognized on Dell's balance sheets.

Donald Carty

So who knew about the financial shenanigans, and when? Carty said executives knew and even encouraged it, but he won't say exactly who those executives were, and is so far refusing to single anyone out for responsibility. "I'm not going to talk about any individual by name," Carty said. "We've taken what we believe to be appropriate actions with respect to personnel involved in this, up to and including terminations."

More importantly, how did this happen at a company widely considered to be conservative and, above all, trustworthy? Dell's explanation is that not only did it not maintain a culture that emphasized strict adherence to GAAP rules, it didn't have enough employees with the proper accounting training or experience to know better.

In addition, Dell says inadequate resources in its accounting department are partly to blame, and--in a remarkable acknowledgment for a company that pioneered selling computers on the Internet--that much of its accounting is done manually, with very few electronic trails.

Carty acknowledged that Dell is "underinvested in IT resource in the financial area." He also told investors "financial systems can't be blamed for irregularities, but they can occasionally be blamed for errors."

Dell's accounting department used "inappropriate accounting decisions and entries that appear to have been largely motivated to achieve desired accounting results."

--Donald Carty,
Dell CFO

It's not uncommon, of course, for companies to be motivated by short-term results. It's just surprising that Dell has become such an egregious example of that short-term thinking.

"I think every company that's public feels the pressure of being a public company and (hitting) quarterly numbers. I think that's why you see companies issuing quarterly guidance," said Brent Bracelin, a financial analyst with Pacific Crest Securities. "It certainly isn't a comforting feeling that they were manipulating numbers. It happened in the past. (The) most important thing is they addressed it and quantified it."

Overall, the financial impact to Dell's bottom line is limited. Between fiscal years 2003 and 2006, Dell's net income was more than $12 billion. The audit committee now says that the actual net income Dell earned during that period is $50 million to $150 million less. Earnings per share for that time frame will likely be 2 cents to 7 cents per share lower.

But how, exactly, does something like this happen? A look at the Dell quarters in question (notably, a period when the company was being praised for strong profits while rival Hewlett-Packard was struggling to meet Wall Street expectations) may provide some answers.

In the first quarter of fiscal year 2003, Dell announced profits of $457 million, or 17 cents per share, on revenue of $8.1 billion for the quarter. Analysts had been expecting a profit of 16 cents per share and revenue of $7.86 billion, according to First Call.

According to the corrected information Dell released Thursday, the net income for that quarter should have been 10 percent lower, around $410 million. Against 2.67 billion outstanding shares that quarter, that would have been 15 cents a share, missing expectations.

In Dell's second quarter of fiscal 2004, the PC maker reported net income of $621 million, or 24 cents a share. Analysts had been expecting 24 cents a share. With the restatement, Dell should have earned $561 million, or 21 cents a share.

The fourth quarter of Dell's fiscal 2005 was an anomaly, as the company took a one-time charge of $280 million for repatriating foreign earnings after the passage of the American Jobs Creation Act. GAAP net income for that quarter was $667 million, or 26 cents a share. Without the charge, it was $947 million, or 37 cents a share. Analysts were expecting, without the charge, 36 cents a share.

After the restatement, Dell actually earned $620 million in GAAP net income, or $900 million without the charge, which would have been 35 cents a share.

[Stating]

Anybody Seen Rollie Lately?

I'll bet he's shopping for a yacht to be anchored in international waters.

Oh, and the lesson to be learned is this. If you want to get away with shady things, do things manually. DO NOT computerize. DO NOT buy new Dell servers. Repeat. DO NOT buy new Dell servers. Keep your old beater servers, have lots of backup failures, and corrupt the database periodically, as needed.

[ibeetle]

I love the paragraph

I love the paragraph:

Overall, the financial impact to Dell's bottom line is limited. ...Dell's
net income was more than $12 billion. The audit committee now says
that the actual net income Dell earned during that period is $50
million to $150 million less. Earnings per share for that time frame
will likely be 2 cents to 7 cents per share lower.

Oh... no big deal... very limited impact. Just an average of 5 cents a
share. Who is that gonna hurt? Well.. if you are someone who has 2
million shares of stock and lost 5 cents a share you just lost 10
million dollars.

[yepperdepper]

FUZZY MATH

It's math like IBeetle's that has dell in trouble.

Better recalculate.

[cybervigilante]

Stockholder Value - Phooey

When are good companies going to stop going insane over short-term stock results? It's destroying America. Enron should have taught them a lesson. A company has Many values to employees, society, our nation, the environment, executives And stockholders.

This one-dimensionsal focus Only on so-called "stockholder value" makes corporations so short-sighted they'll saw off the tree limb they are sitting on. Ugh. This crap was started by the Chicago School of Business years ago, but they need an entirely new paradigm for the twenty-first century.

We all need to start being honest and working together or the entire world is going to hell. And that includes "stockholder value."

[cybervigilante]

I forgot to mention

Their duty to customers and their own reputation. When did people forget about the value of "good will."

If you read the article, though, Dell was not just over-reporting in some quarters, they were under-reporting in others. In other words, they were doing Okay in the long-run, on average. But as usual, everyone was nuts to meet the quarterly. What ever happened to long term vision? Or an investment that takes more than a month to mature?

[cybervigilante]

The shoemaker's children have no shoes

There is so much in this article it's hard to stop commenting ;')

Carty acknowledged that Dell is "underinvested in IT resource in the financial area."

This is actually very common. I go to Fry's Electronics, a huge, modern store that has the Absolute latest in softwear and hardware, including commercial accounting and inventory programs. But if you get a refund you stand in this long line where they wrestle with ancient DOS programs on very old computers and call out passwords to each other, aloud. Very strange system. It's like I've stepped back in time ten years. They don't put a dime into that section.

[nmoore6676]

Cooking the books

The Enron and similar recent financial scandals are the extreme. What Dell (and HP ) as well as others have done is becoming the norm, because the value of companies is now perceived as the Wall Street stock values, not the inherent value of the company based upon balance sheet assets, sales and growth potential as well as the skills and contributions of the management and work staffs. Until this trend is reversed there will be more books cooked at many respectable corporations. In addition the potential for a 1929 type event of exponential proportions is very high until this method of valuation ceases.

[chuck_whealton]

Different Standards

Overall, I tend to like Dell's hardware.

However, what I will say is that I'm sick and tired of upper management holding themselves to different standards than they hold those under them to.

It's not just Dell, and this is just another of many sorry examples.

Charles R. Whealton
Charles Whealton @ pleasedontspam.com

[jelcnet]

GOALS LEAD TO COOKING ? C'MOOONNNN

Goals are the best there is, when they are genuine and sensible... no, I am not talking about Iraq ... talking about Dell, HP, and the lot of companies run by people only interested in filling up their pockets regardless at what expense !!! that is the problem ... PEOPLE .... not goals.

[jpcyr]

Dell's next issue...customer satisfaction

Dell is far from out of the woods...the trees are still falling all around. Read their Direct to Dell blogs (http://direct2dell.com/one2one/archive/2007/08/17/24548.aspx?CommentPosted=true#commentmessage) and you will quickly see a customer rebellion forming based on a huge credibility gap based on a melt down in their manufacturing, procurement, customer service organizations.