Corporate collapse : regulatory, accounting, and ethical failure / F.L. Clarke, G.W. Dean, K.G. Oliver.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 284-288) and index.

Swindlers' list? -- Creative accounting -- The corporate 1960s: Dubious credit and tangled webs -- Reid Murray: The archetypal failure -- Stanhill: Private and public corporate 'games' -- H.G. Palmer: 'Gilt' by association -- Going for broke in the 1970s -- Minsec: Decline of a share trader -- Cambridge Credit: Other people's money -- Uncoordinated financial strategies at Associated Securities Ltd -- The 1980s: Decade of the deal? -- Adsteam on the rocks -- Bond Corporation Holdings Ltd (Group): Entrepreneurial rise and fall -- Westmex Ltd: The security facade of cross guarantees --Groupthing: Byzantine corporate structures -- Groupthing--group therapy: Consolidation accounting -- Fatal attrition: Accounting's diminishing serviceability -- Ethos abandoned, vision lost: Accounting at the professional crossroads?

When financial statements paint a rosy picture of a company one day and the same company announces massive losses the next, it can only be assumed that fortunes haven't actually changed overnight. This provocative book tells why accounting has failed to deliver the truth about a company's state of affairs or to give warning of its drift towards failure. In this lively and readable book, the authors balance broad interpretation and recommendations for reform with fine detail of particular cases, insightful analysis of contemporary practices and dissection to the pervading commercial rhetoric. The failures examined include Reid Murray in the 1960s, Cambridge Credit in the 1970s and Bond Corporation Holdings in the 1980s. They show that the cult of the individual in media coverage of those of affairs has masked serious endemic problems in the system of reporting financial information. Corporate Collapse is essential reading for professional accountants and auditors, company directors and managers, regulators, corporate lawyers, investors, and everyone aspiring to join their ranks.