The Italian job

So if you're a large European company trying to convince your creditors that you're not about to go bust, don't you think that whatever story they cook up would have least been checked to make sure it's not a complete crock? Apparently not, if the company in question is Italian dairy giant Parmalat (which our thousands of readers will know mostly for that long-lasting milk). The company has been the subject of bankruptcy rumours for a couple of weeks, and their latest attempt to put things to rest involved claiming that they had $5 billion in ready cash, sitting in a bank account at Bank of America. Just one problem, as the Wall Street Journal reports today:

In fact, [Bank of America] said that on Dec. 17 it told accountants for [Parmalat] that it doesn't have a Bank of America account...It is unclear who prepared the document contested by Bank of America, or where the [$5 billion] might be located.

Is this the best these Italian execs can do? At least the Enron scam was complicated.