Consider if a public company 'X,' conducted its finances in such a way that they set up a bunch of shell companies, transferred money to these companies in a no

Consider if a public company 'X,' conducted its finances in such a way that they set up a bunch of shell companies, transferred money to these companies in a non-visible way then had those shell companies send that money back to company X in exchange for some nominal goods or services. Then they repeated this process over and over such that the company's public filings showed a steady increase in revenue quarter after quarter, such an increase that they attracted considerable investor attention, resulting in a stock price that rose steadily on the back of these circular accounting tricks. As the stock continued to rise, the company's major stockholders cashed out their shares. What you describing here is dotcom IPO scheme. Inflated revenues (instead of profits) were enough to be considered IPO-worthy.