Company valuation
640 Words
Rapid economic growth in the late 1990s led to excessive expectations of companies profitability. One of the victim of these anticipation, which cause the shenanigans in the incredible scale was WorldCom, one of the biggest telecommunication provider. (Javiriyah Ashraf, 2011). in June 2002, the financial world has stunned by the news about one of the biggest corporate scandal in history, financial machinations in WorldCom. Financial indicators have been distorted to the amount of about 4 billion dollars. (www.icmrindia.org)
The announcement has made a real shock in the business world. How is this even happen? How can such a reputable could conceal such a extremely large expenses from investors? Below I will try to answer this questions.
In order to understand the nature of the fraud we must understand not only the accounting methods but also what was happening in the environment of the company at the time of the fraud. (Javiriyah Ashraf, 2011).
The history of the company began in 1983 when Murray Waldron and William Rector decided to create a long-distance provider and called it LDDS (Long-Distance Discount Service). In 1985, Bernie Ebbers, one of the first investors became the CEO of the company. (Satish C Pandey and Pramod Verma, 2004, p 116).
WorldCom was one of the leading company in the telecommunication industry and running its business in more than 65 countries. (Satish C Pandey and Pramod Verma, 2004, p 116). WorldCom operating area was diversified and involved long-distance voice and data services, with the customer base of around 20 million people and it was also one of the biggest providers of Internet traffic. (www.economist.com).
Telecommunications companies have flooded the technology sector. Barriers to marke...
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...ty, Pub. Date: 2008, Publishing Company: SAGE Publications, Inc., Print pages: 2276-2277).
10. (http://www.economist.com/node/1245862).
11. (Journal of emerging technologies in accounting Vol. 3 2006 pp. 61–80, Learning from WorldCom: Implications for Fraud Detection through Continuous Assurance J. Randel Kuhn, Jr. University of Central Florida, Steve G. Sutton University of Central Florida University of Melbourne).
12. (Kaplan and Kiron 2004).
13. (Rebekah A. Sheely is an assistant professor of accounting at Emporia State University in Emporia, Kansas., WorldCom: A Simple Recipe for Cooking the Books).
14. (book Corporate Integrity & Accountability, Why Conflicts of Interest and Abuse of Information Asymmetry are Keys to Lack of Integrity and What Should Be Done about it, Contributors: Norman E. Bowie, Pub. Date: 2004, Publishing Company: SAGE Publications, Inc.)
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