Longtop's auditor quit in May 2011 and said the company's financial records were false. Four years earlier, the Xiamen software maker had been one of the hottest Chinese listings in New York. It wrote the systems that Chinese banks used to run branches, process transactions and manage risk. China's banks were spending heavily to modernize, and Longtop pitched itself as the local supplier best placed to ride that wave.

Software for China's Banks

Longtop was founded in 1996 in Xiamen, a port city on China's southeast coast. It sold banking software, plus the people to install and maintain it. Its pitch was that foreign vendors did not understand Chinese banks and local rivals were too small. Longtop reported fast growth and high profit margins, numbers that later drew hard questions. Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank led its offering.

Halted on the Big Board

Longtop priced its ADSs at $17.50 in October 2007, above a range that had already been raised, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange as LFT. The shares jumped on the first day. In 2011 short sellers questioned its numbers. That May its auditor, Deloitte, resigned, citing the falsity of the company's records. The NYSE halted trading when Longtop was valued at about $1.08 billion, and the stock never traded on the exchange again.

Cover: Asakurajô (Old Man Asakura) Noh mask, Unknown artist. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a Noh mask (a face that hides another).