WorldCom

WorldCom was once the second-largest long-distance phone company in the United States. When growth slowed, executives kept earnings up by moving routine network expenses off the income statement and onto the balance sheet.

In 2002, the SEC charged WorldCom with capitalizing line costs to fraudulently inflate income. The accounting hole eventually reached about $11 billion, and WorldCom filed what was then the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history.

CEO Bernard Ebbers was later convicted of fraud, conspiracy, and filing false documents. The watch case says "It's our time in '99," which was almost exactly correct: by 2000, the Sprint merger was blocked, growth was slowing, and the accounting fraud was becoming load-bearing.