In the latest issue of Forbes, I write about Caterpillar's troubled takeover in 2012 of a mining-equipment firm in central China that led to a $580 million write-down. For space reasons, the following coda was omitted. It picks up the story in January 2013 after Caterpillar took control of Siwei, the Chinese company, and discovered that its accounts had allegedly been falsified by senior management to inflate its value. You can read the magazine story here. Reporting was contributed from Detroit by Joann Muller.
In the latest issue of Forbes, I write about Caterpillar's troubled takeover in 2012 of a mining-equipment firm in central China that led to a $580 million write-down. For space reasons, the following coda was omitted. It picks up the story in January 2013 after Caterpillar took control of Siwei, the Chinese company, and discovered that its accounts had allegedly been falsified by senior management to inflate its value. You can read the magazine story here. Reporting was contributed from Detroit by Joann Muller.