Santa Clara CA - Stating that "honesty is the best policy," a Silicon Valley private equity firm admitted Monday that it had spent 8 billion dollars buying the wrong high tech company.

"Listen, this is par for the course in the high stakes world of private equity," explained company chairman Allan Fish. "This business is extraordinarily complex."

In a 45 minute press conference at the firm's Santa Clara headquarters Fish provided a high level look at how a sum of money equivalent to the gross domestic product of Romania was spent acquiring the wrong organization following 18 months of excruciating negotiations.

"We were under the impression we were buying that one company that does the searching engines on the cyberspace, or would that be in the cyberspace?. The one with 'oo' sound. It's not 'Doodle.' You turn 40 and your memory goes."

Fish was asked if he understood the magnitude of the "honest mistake" his firm had made. "Hey, I realize you guys have a job to do. You're trying to sell newspapers and what not. I'm a businessman, I get that. It's supply and demand, the whole nine yards. Can you repeat the question?"

Fish continued: "Everywhere you look there's these high tech companies, and I'm gonna tell you something, they all have these one word, far out names. It's very disorienting."

Avaya's lead council, Richard Kern, described the final phase of the 8 billion dollar corporate buyout. "This guy Fish was giddy. He was telling us how much he enjoyed our website. Something about getting a kick out of typing his name in the box and seeing what things came up about himself on the internet."