$4.5 Billion To Nothing: Forbes Revises Estimated Net Worth Of Theranos Founder Elizabeth Holmes

Forbes ^ | June 21, 2016 | Matthew Herper

[PJ-Comix]

Last year, Elizabeth Holmes topped the FORBES list of America’s Richest Self-Made Women with a net worth of $4.5 billion. Today, FORBES is lowering our estimate of her net worth to nothing. Theranos had no comment.

Our estimate of Holmes’ wealth is based entirely on her 50% stake in Theranos, the blood-testing company she founded in 2003 with plans of revolutionizing the diagnostic test market. Theranos shares are not traded on any stock market; private investors purchased stakes in 2014 at a price that implied a $9 billion valuation for the company.

Since then, Theranos has been hit with allegations that its tests are inaccurate and is being investigated by an alphabet soup of federal agencies. That, plus new information indicating Theranos’ annual revenues are less than $100 million, has led FORBES to come up with a new, lower estimate of Theranos’ value.

[PJ-Comix]

Easy come, easy go. Somehow this situation has the makings of a comedy movie. Multi-billionaire woman becomes a pauper overnight.

[jalisco555]

As a pathologist in the Laboratory Medicine field I hope this woman is indicted and convicted. Who even knows how many patients were harmed by her fraud.

[Pearls Before Swine]

She forgot to diversify.

Not sure it would have mattered if the whole company was based on a fraud, though.

[Behind the Blue Wall]

My wife and I were talking about this the other day, wondering whether she’d managed to convert any of her net worth on paper into tangible assets. Apparently not!

[PJ-Comix]

Details?

[Darteaus94025]

That is one heck of a tax deduction

[jalisco555]

Here’s the headline from a recent WSJ article on Theranos;

“Theranos Voids Two Years of Edison Blood-Test Results”

Here’s the link.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/theranos-voids-two-years-of-edison-blood-test-results-1463616976

Thousands of patients affected.

[lewislynn]

That is one heck of a tax deduction

Especially when there's no income to tax.

[SVTCobra03]

Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd it’s gone. South Park reference.

[Darteaus94025]

So, FakeBook buys Theranos for $50M, and deducts $4.5B from its income?

[reed13k]

Working in med devices for the last 16 years, first thing I did when I heard about this was see if it was a public stock I could short.

My brother is a hospital lab manager so we had already talked about several of the tests and their likely incompatibility.

For my part I knew appropriate registrations hadn’t been completed for the claims being made, so...short...alas not yet public - sigh.

[jalisco555]

I guess when you’re an attractive blond with a Steve Jobs vibe people will give you billions.