Miniscribe Corporation Case

MINISCRIBE LTD

CONTENTS

Executive Summary…………………………………………………………..2

Introduction…………………………………………………………………….3

Management Style…………………………………………………………....3

Governance……………………………………………………………………5

Ethics………………………………………………………………………......6

Financial Reporting/ Accounting …………………………………………....7

Financial Statements and Adjustments.....................…………………….8

Auditing……………………………………………………………………..…10

Conclusion…………………………………………………………………....11

Recommendations…………………………………………………………...12

References……………………………………………………………………17

Executive Summary

Miniscribe Corporation is headquartered in Colorado and designs, manufactures and markets a line of data storage solutions for the computing industry. Products are sold through a network sales system using employed personnel and independent distributors. Sales were volatile in the 1980’s yet despite this, revenues soared 100% in 1987. Substantial price competition existed in the market place for the company’s products yet while Q T Wiles was CEO, the company announced it’s 13th consecutive record breaking quarter. Mr Wiles joined the company after his venture capital fund Hambrecht and Quist invested $20 million. Once he assumed the CEO position, Mr Wiles set to work on Miniscribe with repeated rounds of restructuring. In February 1989 Mr Wiles abruptly resigned and left the parting comment that the company problems were far more pervasive than he had realised.

In March 1989 Miniscribe commenced a review of the 1988 results and an independent evaluation committee (IEC) was formed