Villages Health where did all the money go?
A legitimate question. Let me speculate with an analogy, since I doubt it is under the CEO's mattress:
You own Snowbird Enterprises, a company that manufactures and sells widgets solely to the US Government at $2.00/widget. You start with one factory and a staff of 6, but your business grows fairly rapidly due to the demand for widgets. You make some profit, and use that to build more factories, hire more people and attract new professional widget makers. Maybe there's some cash, maybe not, since the books pretty much balance. And because you were dealing with a government bureaucracy, both when setting up your business and as an ongoing concern, you hired outside consultants to make sure you were doing everything right, including the pricing of widgets. Those auditors tell you all along that everything is being done by the book.
Time goes by, like 12 years, and you decide to sell your widget business, so you start negotiating with Widget Mart. To your dismay, they look at your widget pricing and tell you they disagree with the consultants you've hired----it is their opinion that you've been manufacturing type xyz5 widgets, which the government is only allowed, by law, to pay $1.50 each. You look at the difference between xyz5 and the xyz4 widgets that you've been selling, and it still isn't clear who's right since the definition of these widgets is extremely vague and subject to interpretation. So you report to the government that you MAY have been charging too much for widgets. And of course that agency agrees that they paid too much and you now owe them $360 million.
But you don't have $360 million, not even close. You have buildings, and equipment that is generally only good for making widgets, payroll, and bills for utilities and supplies, but no cash---because that's where the money went
Simplistic example, but the general message is accurate.
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