From Francine McKenna @retheauditors: A long list of sophisticated investors including Rupert Murdoch and business partners made the decision to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the private start-up Theranos without insisting on seeing audited financial statements first. From its incorporation in 2003 to its shutdown in August of 2018, Theranos distributed unaudited and allegedly made-up financial information to investors. These investors did not believe that an audit provided useful information when they made personal multimillion-dollar investments despite most also being majority owners and chairs or CEOs of public companies that are mandated to hire an external audit firm and pay for an audit. The Theranos investors decided that an audit wasn’t worth asking for. What is the point of the audit if the market moves on unaudited information every quarter and even at year end, and auditors feel pressure not to make adjustments once companies release unaudited results? Would ...
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