You might not have heard of the Hony Group, but they’ve been making a million dollars a week for the last two years. That’s five pounds in the time it took you to read this far (unfortunately we don’t get paid that much to write it). This wonderful stream of cash comes from an error on the part of Lenovo – who sold their mobile division at the start of 2008 and just recently bought it back.
The sale price was one hundred million dollars but reclaiming it cost twice that. You don’t need an MBA to see that’s a great deal for Hony. A hundred percent markup might not be much on plastic knick-knacks, but when you’re talking multinational-level corporate divisions it’s a great big pile of bonuses just waiting to be distributed. Lenovo’s re-acquisition was explained in a statement as “reflect[ing] the changed market conditions of the past 18 months.” Which is about as close as a corporate announcement can come to “Whoops, our bad.”
Loading ...
Most Commented